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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27696472">Nobody's perfect</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/diesis/pseuds/diesis'>diesis</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire &amp; Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate universe -1920s Westeros, Billy Wilder please forgive me, Humor, Some Like It Hot AU</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 03:15:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>20,054</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27696472</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/diesis/pseuds/diesis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A <em>Some like it hot</em> AU where Brienne and Sansa flee after witnessing a crime, and join an all-male band</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Sansa Stark/Margaery Tyrell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>59</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Sansa I</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>The Twins, 929 A.C.</em>
</p>
<p>-----</p>
<p>Sansa cursed under her breath, not for the first time in that day, while said breath came out in ragged puffs from her mouth and dispersed in the freezing air. For a moment, she almost thought about asking Brienne to switch their cases, because dragging the huge contrabass through the snow that covered the sidewalk would have made her struggle a bit more - and struggling maybe meant being warmer. But just maybe. The garage was a couple of blocks away, and the chances of getting sweaty and then catching pneumonia were much higher, so she followed Brienne's hulking form in the snowstorm, and let her friend's bulk shelter her from the wind, if only a little bit. She tried not to remind herself that by now they could have been packing to leave for Dorne, if it weren't for Brienne's goddamned righteousness.<br/>
Sansa strolled behind the other woman, as her friend, colleague and roommate was hit harder by the storm, and it felt a little revenge.</p>
<p>Sansa loved Brienne, she didn't know what would be of her and her bass if the big, clumsy saxophone player hadn't taken her under her wing the very day she arrived in the city, with a broken heart and her broken pride - and a broken ankle and a black eye after she <em>accidentally fell from the stairs </em>of the house she'd lived with Ramsay in Dreadfort, the day she finally had mustered the courage of telling him it was over and she was leaving him for good.<br/>
Brienne came to pick her up at the bus station, briskly said "Nice to meet you, Jeyne's friends are my friends.", assessed the bull fiddle and the plaster on Sansa's foot, then simply picked up the case in her stead.</p>
<p>In the following three years, that hard been their usual way to move back and forth from an underpaid job to another: smoky clubs, overcrowded bars, cheesy restaurants, speakeasies, Brienne carried Sansa's bass and Sansa her friend's saxophone case, they played some good jazz music and some not so good jazz music, sometimes Sansa would get a drink paid by some customer, sometimes Brienne would drag her back home after taking her away from a man's clutches, sometimes she wouldn't and Sansa would sneak back to their rented room in the morning, while the other woman pretended to sleep. Brienne had a talent for picking men - at least, Sansa's men. When she silently approved one of her hookups, Sansa felt safe, because Brienne would never let her leave her side with someone she deemed less than harmless, and was able to detect trouble much more than Sansa herself.<br/>
It felt like having an elder sister - the kind of elder sister she'd never been to Arya, because, well, Arya...</p>
<p>It wasn't exactly the life that was to be expected for a respectable young lady, but Sansa had given up on respectability a long time ago, and to tell the truth she didn't regret it that much.</p>
<p>Going back home in Winterfell was not an option, not after she disputed with each and every member of her family about her engagement with that abusive shit Ramsay, and then stubbornly left to follow him in Dreadfort. They'd been right, about him, and she'd been wrong, and that possibly was the main reason she wasn't going to go back any time soon - nor to ask them to send some cash to pay her rent. She was not ready for a life of I-told-you-so-s yet.</p>
<p>So by now there were Brienne, the music and the daily struggles to put together enough money for their bills, their meals and their shabby chamber.</p>
<p>Sansa loved Brienne but sometimes she would've strangled her, especially when she let herself get hoodwinked by her good heart. Sansa often wondered how she could be smart, guarded, strong and almost sassy, and in the meantime too generous for her own good. Of course, Brienne had a soft spot for stray cats and outcasts, but Sansa still marveled at how much she could get carried away.<br/>
In those days, there had been an issue about Willow - their landlady who was almost young enough to be Brienne's daughter, and yet ran the boarding house after both her parents died in a car accident.<br/>
There had been broken windows, a burned dumpster, then their room neighbor Podrick had been robbed twice while he came back from work, and in the end two creepy henchmen of a local gang showed up demanding protection money from the girl.<br/>
Sansa had to talk Brienne out of confronting directly the men, because they would surely be armed. And the result was that Brienne offered Willow to help with the payment, at least until she figured out how to help her to get rid of those criminals. And - since they didn't swim in gold either - the result was that they'd pawned their only good winter coats three days before the first winter snowstorm, which they were currently walking through.</p>
<p>-----</p>
<p>Earlier the same day, they'd stayed outside the door of "<em>Beyond the Wall</em>" music agency.<br/>
The two women knew the long corridor like the back of their hand, they'd knocked at all the doors on that floor more times than they could count. <em>Almost</em> all the doors, because everyone at The Twins knew that "<em>Mockingbird</em>" agency didn't ask their musicians just to play instruments, and even if Sansa and Brienne were not exactly reputable ladies, they weren't <em>that</em> disreputable either - Brienne always said that being unemployed or in jail was still better than messing with Mr. Baelish, and that was an indisputable truth.</p>
<p>Their last job had ended somewhat adventurously, after the police raided the speakeasy where they'd just started to play the same evening.<br/>
It wasn't something unusual: after the Council of the Seven banned the booze, they'd been playing quite often in clandestine clubs, but actually never during a bust. Sansa counted herself lucky that she spotted the cop a couple of minutes before the whole police department burst in, so they could make their escape by a fire exit. They would probably be both unemployed <em>and</em> in jail if she didn't.<br/>
Walder "Late" Frey, the boss of the most powerful mob in town, would open ten more speakeasies in the span of a week, while Sansa and Brienne were still penniless and without an overcoat and unemployed.</p>
<p>Brienne hesitated with her fingers on the handle, took a deep breath then opened the door without knocking.<br/>

The redhead man behind the desk leered at her, and Sansa hoped that at least this time Tormund's blatant crush on Brienne could get them some good job offer.<br/>

"Anything today?" Her friend asked, feigning a casual tone, and blushing like a tomato.<br/>

"Me!" Tormund answered with a mischievous laugh.<br/>

Brienne rolled her eyes, and was about to shut the door again when the man stood up and called her back.<br/>

"Hey, Brienne, wait!"<br/>

Reluctantly, they both entered the room.<br/>

"I'm not in the mood, Tormund."<br/>

"You never are, apparently... what about Saturday? I had to cancel our reservation in the fanciest restaurant of Upper Twin for a..."<br/>

"Toothache!" Brienne exclaimed, slapping herself on the cheek.<br/>

This time was Sansa who rolled her eyes, but she backed her friend up anyway. "A very bad toothache, indeed, she just could <em>swallow</em> liquid food for two days."<br/>

Brienne glared at her and Sansa smirked back. It was the same old story: Brienne kept on flaking out on the poor sod with the most imaginative excuses, and then feeling guilty for lying, and still didn't dare to tell him flat-out that she was not going to date him.<br/>

"Yeah, as I told you, I could have helped with that, you know, darling, saliva has healing powers..."<br/>

No, Brienne was rightly <em>never</em> going to date him.</p>
<p>"Is Mance in?" She cut short, trying to change the subject, and nodding towards the inner office.<br/>

"Yeah, he is." Tormund replied, crossing his arms and sitting down again with an offended thud. "Why don't you ask him about that three weeks job in Dorne?"<br/>

"Three weeks in Dorne?" The women repeated in unison, and Sansa suddenly felt much more friendly towards the ginger secretary.<br/>

"Sunspear. Transportation and all expenses paid... They're just looking for a bass and a sax." He went on, with an indecipherable grin, but Sansa didn't have time to brood about Tormund's face, and was already knocking lightly on Mance Rayder's door.<br/>

Brienne stared at Tormund for another beat, then followed her.<br/>

From inside the room, a high pitched voice complained about someone who got married with a single mother from a godforsaken village North of Castle Black. Another voice, lower and less frenzied, interrupted the first one. "Not my fault, sweet sister. I'm the manager, not your boys' wet nurse."<br/>

"Let me try another phone call." Mance chimed in, conciliatory, and while the three people waited for the switchboard to answer, Sansa and Brienne slowly opened the door and peeked inside.</p>
<p>The woman was a beautiful blonde in exceedingly high heels, close to her forties but still very attractive, if you didn't care about her temper. Her green eyes looked daggers first at one of the framed photos on the wall, then at a small man - a dwarf - who'd climbed on Mance's desk and was leafing through a card file.<br/>

"Tyrion!" The woman yelled, but the dwarf shrugged and showed a paper to Mance, instead, so she strode towards the pitcher of water that Mance kept on a shelf, filled a glass and used it to drown a pill. "Damn ulcer."<br/>

"Guess what, Cers, I thought it would've healed since you stopped drinking." Tyrion said, positively unimpressed.<br/>

"Jorah, are you still there? What?" Mance spoke to the phone, then shook his head. "I'm sorry Cersei, Jorah Mormont just ended playing a hundred hours dance marathon at the Targ Theater in Dragonstone, he's in burnout."<br/>

"He might as well get burned by a real dragon, for what I care!" Cersei screamed, then went close to Rayder and pointed her red polished nail at him. "ust find. Me. Those. Men, Mance!"<br/>

"Calm down, sister!" Tyrion took her hand and pulled it down again, like a patient tamer soothing a lioness. Now that they were near, Sansa could see the resemblance: they really were siblings, and she immediately thought about her own brothers, then shooed the thought away.<br/>

"I'm sure Mr. Rayder won't disappoint us..." The dwarf said.<br/>

"I'm still here, you know! Anyway, Cersei, I can make a couple more phone calls. You'll have your bull fiddle and your saxophone by the time the train leaves."<br/>

"Eight p.m." The woman nodded towards the clock on the wall, that read a quarter to five. Then opened her purse, fished out another pill, and swallowed this one without a sip of water, pouting.<br/>

Tyrion jumped down from the desk and retrieved a folder and two expensive looking coats from the armchair, handing the fur-lined one to Cersei. "We'll wait for them at the platform then. Bye Mance, and thanks." He said, making a face that said he thanked Mance more for dealing with his sister that for his actual scouting job.<br/>

</p><p>Sansa jerked back and pulled Brienne from the door just before Cersei slammed it fully open. She stopped in her tracks for a moment, facing them, and looking them up and down with a disdain that could have scorched them, had they been two soft maidens. They both weren't neither soft nor maidens - well, about the latter, Brienne <em>technically</em> could be counted as one, but certainly was no damsel in distress, and she stared back - stared <em>down</em> at the other blonde without batting an eye, then moved past her entering Mance's office.<br/>

Tyrion offered Sansa and Tormund a sheepish smile, and toddled to the door of the agency to open it for Cersei. Sansa could tell he did it because otherwise the woman would've probably kicked it down.<br/>

"Good luck with your ulcer, Cers!" Mance shouted behind her.</p>
<p>"Mance..."<br/>
"Girls..." Mance yawned, relaxing in his chair.<br/>
"What about this job in Dorne? Tormund said..."<br/>

"Brienne, did you just ditch him <em>again</em>, dear?" Mance interrupted her, sounding quite fatherly.<br/>

"Er... maybe..." Brienne blushed and stammered, so Sansa took charge.<br/>

"We're here to talk about the job, not about Brienne's love life."<br/>

"Oh, Sansa, dear, music and love life are always meant to get together." Mance laughed. "Anyway, there's no job in Dorne for the two of you."<br/>

"Yet that crazy one who just stormed off talked about a bass and a sax, didn't she?"<br/>

"Yes she did." Mance glared at her, annoyed. "But that job is not for you."<br/>

"What's wrong with us" Brienne frowned.<br/>

"Wrong shape." Mance shook his head, picked up again the phone and asked for another name at the switchboard.<br/>

"Wrong <em>what</em>?" Brienne all but shouted, and Sansa widened her eyes. Men did often mock her friend for her looks, but Mance had never been so rude.<br/>

"It's for <em>Queen Cersei and Her Queensguard</em>. That's an all-male band. <em>Male</em>." He repeated, arching his eyebrows and nodding towards Sansa's dress low neckline.<br/>

Brienne turned to the open door, getting red again but this time in anger. Tormund in the other room was making puppy eyes.<br/>

"Except of Ms Lannister, of course. And she' not exactly the accommodative sort, uh?"</p>
<p>Sansa wasn't going to give up so easily, not when she'd spotted the first snowflakes swirling out of Mance's window and recalled that their coats were still at the pawn shop.<br/>"We already disguised as men, don't you remember, Brie? That carnival party in Lower Twin..."<br/>Brienne sighed wearily.<br/>"...I could use a wig, and put on a restraining bra..."<br/>"Sansa..."<br/>"You could cut your hair a bit shorter, maybe use a fake beard... I'm not very much into blondes but you'd definitely made a hot guy!"<br/>"Has she gone crazy?" Mance mouthed to Brienne, still keeping both his hands on the phone.<br/>"No it's just hunger hallucinations, we've been skipping meals for a couple of days." She explained.<br/>"Yes, and we could eat caviar in some upper class hotel in Dorne. We should just borrow Pod's suits, call ourselves Brian and Sandor...."<br/>"That's enough!" Mance stopped her, and this time Brienne agreed with him. "Qyburn!" He said to the candlestick phone. "No, no, I wasn't speaking to you, sorry."<br/>Brienne looked at Sansa despairingly. "Sansa. Please. I'm not doing it, not at all. It's..."<br/>"A smart move?"<br/>"A ruse!"<br/>"Oh, don't play the summer child now, Brie! You don't mind so much about lying when you need to dump Tormund..."<br/>"That's not the same thing." Sansa could tell her friend's distress by the way her skin flushed. "I'd never be able to do it. I'm an awful liar."<br/>"Of course you are!"<br/>The clank of the receiver on the hook interrupted their quarrel. Mance stared at the phone with wild eyes. &lt;"An experimental music duo with Greg Clegane... Phew! That guy is creepy..."<br/>He shook his head, then turned towards the two women.<br/>"Girls, sorry for the Dorne thing, but if you need some money, there's a dance party at Seagard University tonight. Six dragons a man. And they don't mind if it's a man or a woman."<br/>"Fine!" Brienne answered quickly.<br/>"Fine. Just be at the campus at half past eight." Mance said, and then started flipping again through his lists of names. Of male names.</p>
<p>"Brian and Sandor..." Brienne grunted, dragging her back in the outer office. "At least this way we'll be able to get back our overcoats."<br/>

"How do we even get there? It's an hour drive from here and we just missed the last bus." Sansa pointed out.<br/>

Brienne grimaced and averted her eyes. She would find a solution, like she always did. Whereas Sansa was all romance and big ideals and creativity, Brienne was stubborn and focused. A knight on a quest, there was almost nothing she couldn't achieve, if she tried to - and if it had nothing to do with feelings.<br/>

Sansa knew her so well, by now, that she could tell the moment she got the right idea by the way her body shifted, and her shoulders became less tense.<br/>

"Tormund, d'you got plans for tonight?"<br/>

The ginger looked at her with undisguised hope. "Do you want to make amends for Saturday? I was just going to stay at home and eat something but..."<br/>
"You mean you're being at home all the evening?"<br/>

Tormund's face lit up as he answered a lustful "Yes!!!"<br/>

Brienne beamed triumphantly.<br/>

"Very well, so we can borrow your car!"</p>
<p>-----</p>
<p>"<em>Wal Waters</em>" read the sign on the entrance of the garage, Brienne straightened herself to her full height - as she usually did when they had to face anything unknown and possibly dangerous.<br/>
Sansa was not a petite woman, but Brienne towered two heads over her, and this time she was grateful that her friend could be quite intimidating, because the men inside the garage stopped their card game and reached for the guns they kept on the table.<br/>
One of them came near, the weapon leveled at their faces.<br/>
"We came to pick up a car. Tormund Giantsbane's car."; Brienne said sternly, but her hand gripped the bass so tightly that her knuckles went white. Sansa held the sax case as if she were holding on for dear life.<br/>
"Open that. Slowly." Ordered the man who seemingly was the boss. His face looked familiar. Sansa bet she'd already seen him somewhere. They obeyed, revealing their instruments. Brienne was going to bitch about this all the way to Seagard.</p>
<p>The skinny man eyed them suspiciously, then turned towards another weasel-faced one. Frey kins, all of them - apparently in this town everyone who was in a gang was a Frey, and the other way round.<br/>
The boss inside the garage nodded at his henchman, who nodded at Brienne and Sansa and then took a step back to let them in.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Brienne I</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
Brienne had had some bad days in her life, but this one outdid them all.<br/>
First, the radio forecasts got the timing of the first snowstorms all wrong. They’d been saying “<em>winter is coming in a couple of weeks</em>”, so she’d been sure that she and Sansa would have redeemed their coats by then. Instead, they almost froze to death during the short walk between the music agency and the garage (that they ended up borrowing a car from <em>Tormund</em> was just adding insult to injury).<br/>
<br/>
Then, they almost got killed for real, because, of course they happened to be in that goddamned garage at the precise moment old “Late” Frey and his henchmen decided to settle some scores with the owner of the place. And they saw everything - they didn’t actually <em>see</em> much, luckily, because as soon as the gangsters arrived she pulled Sansa down behind a car, but they heard every single bullet that was shot by their machine-guns.<br/>
Brienne had been living on her own for almost ten years - she was a  child when she lost her mother and brother, and a girl when her father <em>moved on </em>with Roelle. From a day to the next she wasn’t welcome anymore in her own home in Tarth, so she left with just a small suitcase and Galladon’s saxophone - the one she sold on a very rough winter a couple of years later, to buy a cheaper one and pay four months of rent in a filthy room in Gulltown.<br/>
She’d been a young woman in a foreign city, and the first thing she learned was to avoid trouble as much as she could, to oppose it as hard as she could when she couldn’t avoid it, and to be quick to decide whether to flee or to fight. (Needless to say, at first she tended to fight much more that was reasonable, and still had a couple of scars and a twice broken nose to remind it).<br/>
She’d been at The Twins for five years, and she’d managed to keep both herself and Sansa away from almost everything connected with the Frey family - except for playing in speakeasies from time to time. Then, in the space of two days, the bust at the fake funeral home and the actual funeral of the garage owner and his pals...<br/>
She was still brooding over their bad luck, and praying the Seven that the gang could leave without noticing them, when the sax case that Sansa’d left over the hood of the car slowly slipped on the side and fell on the ground.<br/>
<br/>
The very moment the instrument hit the floor, Brienne knew they were doomed, one way or the other.<br/>
That they somehow managed to get out of there alive, with just a line of bullet holes on the sound box of the bass, still seemed a miracle.<br/>
But the miracle wasn’t going to last long if they stayed in town, because there was no cubbyhole in Upper or Lower Twin that the Frey wouldn’t shake down to find them. And they had nowhere else to go.<br/>
<br/>
——-<br/>
<br/>
Brienne didn’t like lying. She quite hated it. But sometimes it was a matter of life and death - and this was a matter of life and death much more than any date with Tormund she’d ever tried to escape from.
So as soon as they were out of reach from “Late” men, she checked the street clock on the other side of the snow-covered alley, then dragged a whining Sansa inside a cigar store and asked the clerk for the phone. They had two hours left.<br/>
“Mr. Rayder?” She said when the switchboard gave her the line, keeping her voice as low and deep as she could. “I heard you’re looking for a saxophonist and a contrabass player for a three week job, starting tonight... My buddy and I are free...”<br/>
Sansa, at her side, looked at her with something that could be either disbelief or awe.<br/>
<br/>
——-<br/>
<br/>
Willow and Podrick helped them to dress up, to pack hastily, to dye and cut Sansa’s long bob in the laundry of the boarding house. Sansa put on a faux mustache, Brienne both that and a beard, and glasses, since they all said her eyes were too remarkable, and she’d better hide them.<br/>
Podrick gave Sansa a pile of clothes that were exactly her size, included a brown tweed coat, a cap, and the elegant suit she would use when they played. Brienne had already most of the things she needed: she often wore men’s clothes, big enough for her, and more comfortable than many feminine dresses. Willow picked up some more garments from the laundry clean baskets, muttering something about the excuses she was going to tell to their owners, a black derby that had belonged to one of her former guests, and a black overcoat from an old trunk in the attic.<br/>
They decided to leave behind almost all their belongings, Pod and the girl would sell them and keep the money.<br/>
Brienne looked sadly at the pair of dark blue sandals that lay in the back of the closet. She’d bought them at Thobo Mott’s on her only trip in King’s Landing four years before. They were the most expensive item in her wardrobe - but she signed for a two months job at the Red Keep Opera House, back then, the paycheck was good and they reminded her of the shoes her mother wore in the only photograph she had of her. Furthermore, they fitted like a glove even if her feet were big. She was about to tell Willow not to accept less than fifty dragons at the pawnshop, when Sansa picked them up and tossed them without a word in Brienne’s already full suitcase, then closed its lid and locked it. “Ready?” Her friend asked.<br/>
Then they said a heavyhearted goodbye, knowing far too well that they would never see Podrick and Willow again.<br/>
They exited the building as Brian and Sandor, and Brienne started doubting this had been a good idea three footsteps later, as soon as they reached the sidewalk.<br/>
<br/>
Sometimes, people did mistake her for a man, due to her height and her size and her short hair - and her features that she’d learned to call ugly since her teens. But this was the first time she really tried to pose as a man, and it felt all wrong.<br/>
“Just walk as if you were slumping on a chair after a very bad rehearsal.” Sansa suggested. “Casual. But self-confident. And straighten your shoulders.”<br/>
“Damn, Sansa!” She whispered back. “It’s not easy! It’s... contradictory! And why don’t <em>you</em> straighten your shoulders?”<br/>
“Boobs.” Sansa answered, as flat as Brienne’s chest. One of the perks of having almost no breasts was that Brienne could avoid the restraining bra, that Sansa assured was uncomfortable as the Seven Hells. Breast size apart, her friend looked much more at ease than her, while they walked down the road that lead to Upper Twin Central Station, quickly - another perk of their outfits were the flat shoes.<br/>
<br/>
Brienne had already risked death twice today, and now she was probably going to die of embarrassment before they reached the platform, she thought when she spotted her reflection in the shop window of a cafe in front of the station.<br/>
The person mirrored in the glass was as tall and ungainly as usual, but she’d made her peace with it a long time ago, and most of the time she could simply avoid to think about her appearance. Yet the coat was too tight on the shoulders, as the black blazer beneath it, but the trousers - Brienne’s own ones - were loose and too long without the usual heels, the shirt was from the man’s department but had a embellished silken collar, that was the reason she’d chosen it in the store, and now looked exactly a woman’s shirt. She wouldn’t be able to cheat anyone, Brienne thought for the hundredth time, when they arrived inside the station and she shook off the snow from her shoulders and from the bass case.<br/>
A man wouldn’t move his hands like this, she thought, as her eyes fell on a tall guy on the other side of the station hall: even from the distance, he looked like he owned the place, shrugged lightly to clean his wide shoulders from the snowflakes, then strode towards the platform in a way that Brienne would have found mouthwatering, hadn’t she been too intent in studying it to copy it.<br/>
<br/>
She looked again at her hands, that stuck out from the ill fitting sleeves of the coat and thought that at least she wouldn’t need an overcoat anymore when they reached Dorne. <em>If they ever managed</em> to reach Dorne.<br/>
“I look like an undertaker. A <em>female </em>undertaker. A female undertaker with a beard.” She complained, speaking close to Sansa’s ear.<br/>
“That was probably the job of Willow’s former guest.” Sansa replied, sarcastically. “Are you having second thoughts, Brie? Because I’ve been having them since Pod started shortening my bangs...” Her friend confessed, touching her bare forehead.<br/>
“It’s just a way to get out of town. We reach Sunspear, vanish for a while...” Brienne answered.<br/>
“Speaking about graves...” Sansa nodded towards the kiosk under the big wall clock: a newsy was hanging a poster that read “<em>Shooting in a garage in Upper Twin, seven massacred. Fear blood aftermath. Police looks for witnesses.</em>”<br/>
“Fine, no second thoughts, Brian!” Sansa exclaimed, in a voice that was supposed to sound like a young tenor’s one.<br/>
“Let’s go Sandor. Casual, self-confident. We just need not to draw attention and not to get into trouble for the space of the trip...” Brienne agreed, then headed to the platform, trying to forget that they could easily get caught in a few moments anyway.<br/>
<br/>
The announcer voice filled the station. “<em>Dorne Limited leaving on track seven for King’s Landing, Storm’s End, Summerhall, Yronwood and Sunspear. All aboard!</em>”<br/>
Brienne spotted Tyrion in front of a Pullman car. The dwarf was smoking a cigar and checked nervously his pocket watch. Then he looked towards the entrance of the platform and his face lit up with a smile.<br/>
It took a moment to Brienne to realize he wasn’t smiling at her and Sansa. The man she’d seen in the hall was right behind them, with blond curly hair that just seemed to call for a woman’s fingers to comb them, green glistening eyes, a sculpted body and a jaw that could cut diamonds. Brienne almost stopped to look at him and the demigod almost tripped over the bass case she was dragging.<br/>
“Watch it, you clod!” The man said, peevishly, turning to her and staring up - he was tall but still not tall enough - and Brienne glared back. Another beautiful asshole, she’d seen plenty of them, even though never so beautiful.<br/>
“You’d trip on your own feet like a woman in heels. Not that you’d need them, beanpole.”<br/>
The only word Brienne heard of his sentence, at first, was “<em>woman</em>”, and she froze in her tracks, but then her brain processed everything the man said and she started breathing normally again: he didn’t nail their disguise, he was just being an arrogant, extremely handsome asshole.<br/>
When he turned without waiting for her answer and went forward along the platform, she felt safe enough to  move again. And immediately stopped, astonished, when he kneeled in front of Tyrion and hugged him warmly, without giving a damn about his tailored suit that got soiled on the dirty station floor.<br/>
“Nice to see you, coz!” Tyrion exclaimed, patting him on the shoulders with his short arms, then disentangled himself from the embrace and waved at Brienne and Sansa, while the other man stood up and wiped shoddily his knees with his palms.<br/>
“You’re from Rayder’s agency, guys?” Tyrion shouted over the noise of the station, gesturing at their instrument cases, and Brienne and Sansa nodded, coming closer.<br/>
As they approached, the small man looked at them skeptically, and Brienne was almost sure he’d understood they weren’t <em>guys</em> at all, but before he could say anything, a voice coming from the train interrupted them.<br/>
“Jaime.”<br/>
Brienne had already heard Cersei in Mance’s office, but the ice that exuded from her now was completely different from the crazed tantrum that they’d witnessed some hours before. The woman stood on the threshold of the wagon in a claret chemise dress and a black jacket she’d clearly borrowed from one of her musicians, all beauty and femininity, her long hair carefully styled in a wavy bun, perfect makeup, perfect features, perfect body, and yet she looked like she would have shot them all with a machine-gun like the worst Frey henchman, if she’d just been certain she would get away with it.<br/>
All of them, but mostly Jaime, and Brienne instantly wondered how much of a asshole the man could be to earn such a murderous look. Not that Cersei looked like a saint, anyway, so it would have been quite a hard choice.<br/>
“Cousin.” Jaime answered, and Brienne sensed something akin to grief in the way his voice trembled, but it faded quickly. “Is that an Os Kettleblack’s jacket?” He asked mockingly.<br/>
“The Os Kettleblacks quitted two years ago, all three of them.” Tyrion informed him, suppressing a smug smile, and Jaime’s eyes narrowed, but his tone remained light.<br/>
“Then it must be Lancel’s, because you wouldn’t need a new bull fiddle if Moonboy still played in the band.” Jaime went on, and headed straight to the car entrance, with such a resoluteness that Cersei couldn’t do anything else but step backwards to let him pass.<br/>
“Enjoy yourself with the beanpole.” Jaime added as he surpassed her, nodding towards Brienne, and then at Cersei’s jacket. “It’s too tight on the hips, anyway.”<br/>
<br/>
Cersei stared at his back  as he disappeared inside the train, then turned to Tyrion, ready to fire again.<br/>
“I’m...” Brienne lowered her voice of an octave. “I’m not the bass player. My name’s Brian, saxophone.” She said raising her hand to wave hesitatingly to Cersei, an then lowering it to shake Tyrion’s extended one.<br/>
“Yes, the bass is mine.” Sansa chimed in. “Nice to meet you. I’m Alain.”<br/>
Brienne scowled at her friend but couldn’t say anything. <em>Alain</em>. Another unplanned thing, and she’d already had enough of unplanned things for a single day. For a single life, possibly.<br/>
“Tyrion Lannister. She’s our <em>Queen Cersei</em>.” He pointed to his sister, who glared at him and stormed back inside the car. “And you just met our lead singer, Jaime, who’s back with us after four years of... sabbatical leave, so to speak. We all have quite an interesting history, don’t we?”<br/>
“Oh we do, we studied at the Eyrie Conservatory!” Sansa answered. She had actually studied - and met her former psycho boyfriend - there, but that was not exactly the point.<br/>
Brienne flushed, lowered her head and realized that she was still shaking Tyrion’s hand. She released it immediately, and braced herself, for the the small man was surely going to give them away.<br/>
“So, let’s get on board before they leave for Dorne without us.” Tyrion said, instead, winking. “I don’t know what those two loving relatives of mine would do with each other if I don’t keep an eye on them!”<br/>
<br/>
——-<br/>
<br/>
“Alain?<em> Alain</em>??? For the Seven sake!”Brienne whispered as loudly as she could in Sansa’s ear while Tyrion preceded them in the aisle. “What is that, a Myrish aristocrat?”<br/>
“I never did like the name Sandor... it reminds me of that guest of Willow’s, d’you recall him?”<br/>
“I probably am wearing his coat right now, Sansa, I don’t love being called Brian either, but...” Brienne stopped suddenly because they’d reached the main room of the Pullman car.<br/>
Tyrion didn’t hold the swing door open for them, and it almost hit Brienne’s face when it slammed back. The dwarf turned slightly to check that she hadn’t broken her nose, then surveyed the boisterous group of musicians who were settling in their places.<br/>
“Hello everybody, I’m Alain, the bass fiddle!” Sansa shouted behind her, and Brienne tried to make herself smaller as twelve players turned towards them.<br/>
“Brian. Sax.” Brienne said, disheartened, while the men greeted them back. At least Jaime was not inside the car, otherwise he would surely have called her “<em>beanpole</em>”, that was even worse than “<em>Brian</em>”.<br/>
And at least the train was moving, so they would not get killed by some Frey man too soon.<br/>
<br/>
“Ok, boys, let’s just check the berths assignments...” Tyrion boomed, picking up the piece of paper and the pen that lay beside his coat, on one of the aisle seats. Brienne looked at him admiringly: keeping the band at bay did not seem an easy task. Brienne herself sometimes struggled to rein in Sansa, and although her friend had proved to be quite reckless from time to time, she was only one, while Tyrion had to deal with thirteen of them, plus Cersei.<br/>
“Brian, Alain, you’ll sleep in berths seven and seven-A.” Tyrion stated.<br/>
“Loras, Renly, berths three and three-A. And please use both the beds this time. Bronn shut up!”<br/>
“I hadn’t even opened my mouth...” A skinny black haired man on the other side of the car complained, smirking.<br/>
“Not yet.” The tall redhead beside him laughed, putting aside the cases of their violins.<br/>
“Thanks Addam.” Tyrion went on. “If I had a dragon for every time I heard that joke about who’s going to be on top, I’d buy half King’s Landing. At least change the record. Berths four, and four-A for the violins...”<br/>
“I can move on to dick jokes, can’t I, Crabb?” Bronn retorted, nudging another of his fellows.<br/>
“Fuck off.”<br/>
“Hey, guys! Language!” Tyrion kindly scolded them. “Our newest recruits are two real gentlemen. They went to a conservatory!”<br/>
Brienne had almost reached smoothly and inconspicuously her seat on the furthest side of the car, managing not to bump into anyone with the bull fiddle, but the uproarious laugh that Tyrion’s words prompted made her stumble, and she hurried to hide inside the seat row. So much for the “<em>not draw attention</em>” part.<br/>
The thin, quiet one who sat in the line in front of her introduced himself as Cleos, trombone. “Welcome in the crew! Sorry if Bronn is being a bit gross. You know... Cers first rule is no booze and no women, and that’s how he copes.” He explained, with a polite smile.<br/>
Brienne smiled back, tightly. The faux beard itched on her chin and she wondered if it would detach if she scratched.<br/>
“Never mind. We’re quite used to foul language... We’re men, aren’t we?” She asked, raising an eyebrow in a way she hoped could seem comradely.<br/>
Of course she was used to foul language, she was a jazz player - a female jazz player that regularly had to deal with male colleagues and male spectators, to suffer their occasional harassment and their constant taunting remarks about her too-much-ness. Too tall, too big, too homely, too strong, too bold, too tenacious, too steadfast, too guarded. None of that seemed to matter now that she was <em>Brian</em>, and this made her blood boil, but she couldn’t blame poor Cleos for it, and the man seemed so genuinely unaware of her sex that she just kept on smiling affectedly.<br/>
<br/>
Cleos was content with her answer and sat again, resuming a very boring discussion with a black haired young boy, about the differences between swing and ragtime.<br/>
The other players were still taking off their coats, settling their luggage, arguing with Tyrion about the berths assignment or the restaurant car menu. And laughing, and making silly jokes, and singing and whistling. They seemed quite friendly, all in all.<br/>
<br/>
Too friendly, maybe: Sansa hadn’t moved towards their seats yet, and was leaning against one of the aisle ones, where a tanned handsome guy chatted amiably with her with a gaze that Brienne could just describe as lascivious.<br/>
Brienne would have torn her hair out. In fact, the “<em>not get into trouble</em>” part was unattainable if you had Sansa and a bunch of young, hot blooded, from-averagely-to-very attractive men in the same Pullman car for two whole days.<br/>
The fact that her friend was dressed in trousers, looked manlike enough, and was talking about football players didn’t affect the lust of the dark haired hottie.<br/>
Brienne set up her voice and called her. “Alain!”<br/>
Sansa didn’t react to her fake name until the third time Brienne shouted it, then smiled naively, waved off her new friend and joined her in the last seats of the car.<br/>
<br/>
“You know, this job hadn’t been a bad idea at all, Br...ian! Two weeks of good music!” Sansa said as soon as she reached Brienne.<br/>
Brienne scowled.<br/>
“Did you meet Oberyn? He’s from Dorne, I asked him if he can guide us on a tour when we reach Sunspear, I bet he knows some very interesting places...”<br/>
Brienne scowled harder. Sansa whispered in her hear with a mischievous grin. “My recurring dream when we’re skipping meals is that I’m locked up at Hot Pie’s overnight... with all those pastries and goodies... trays of lemon cakes... and this feels almost like that.”<br/>
“Then you’d better go to the restaurant car and fill your stomach until you stop having hunger hallucination. <em>Alain</em>.” Brienne retorted, pointing her hand just under Sansa’s nose, her fingers almost brushing the mustache. “We don’t draw attention! We don’t get into trouble! We don’t eat lemon cakes!!! Think yourself on a diet.”
She ended, folding herself again into the seat.<br/>
Sansa rolled her eyes, then took off her coat and Brienne stopped her just a second before she hung it on the cord of the emergency brake, that ran above the window.<br/>
<br/>
They’d just started arguing quietly about Sansa’s suggestion of just enjoying themselves a little, when Cleos mate, Jon, raised his head from the other seat row and looked at them questioningly.<br/>
“Guys, Cleos and I have a debate about the tritone substitution and we wondered if you could help us to resolve it.”<br/>
Brienne looked at him as if he was speaking in Old Valyrian.<br/>
“You know, since you went to a conservatory. A daughter of my uncle’s attended at the Eyrie’s one and she was such a wonk for music theory...” The boy explained.<br/>
“No!” Sansa snapped. “No! I must go and powd... take a piss, I must take a piss!” She muttered all too fast, then sprang to her feet and headed to the swing door behind their seats, that lead to the restrooms.<br/>
Brienne followed her instantly, and grabbed her by the shoulders before she entered the one marked “<em>WOMEN</em>”.<br/>
“What’s going on, Sansa?!?” Brienne whispered, tensely.<br/>
“That’s Jon!”<br/>
“Yeah, that’s his name.”<br/>
“No, no, you don’t get it, that’s <em>my cousin Jon</em>!” Sansa whispered back, moving her hands like a madman.<br/>
“The wonk for music theory, is that <em>you</em>?”<br/>
“Of course it’s me! I could spend an hour trying to explain to those boors the harmony rules to do an augmented sixth chord...” Sansa admitted.<br/>
“Gods, so he recognized you...” Brienne felt the blood drain from her face.<br/>
“Oh, no, I doubt it. He’s never had a good memory for faces, and I haven’t seen him since I was thirteen.. I’d better not tell you what my friend Ygritte used to tell about him back then... but...”<br/>
Sansa stopped, because the door down the aisle opened and Cersei came in.<br/>
On impulse, Brienne opened the door marked “<em>MEN</em>”, pulled Sansa inside, and closed the latch behind them.
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Brienne II</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The man who was already in the lounge of the restrooms let out a startled gasp as they entered, and Brienne thought that the Seven decided to punish her for all her sins giving her a single day of hell, because it was the infuriating asshole that had already insulted her twice before they boarded the train.<br/>
And the Gods had a very twisted sense of humor, because he’d been staring at the night outside of the window with his trousers pooled at his feet, and when he turned he almost tripped <em>again</em>.<br/>
<br/>
Brienne at first had to force herself not to turn her head - a man wouldn’t have done it - and then she had to force herself not to stare too much at his bare muscled thighs and his too short peach underpants, that made him look even more naked. Brienne made a mental note to ask Sansa if that was the latest underwear fashion trend, because the last time she’d seen a man in his underpants, they’d been knee-long, and white, and that definitely was not the only thing that Hyle and Jaime hadn’t in common.<br/>
Jaime held a small metal flask in his left, and looked slightly embarrassed and more than slightly drunk. He probably started drinking as soon as the train left the station. He shot them a guilty look, then bent forward, to tuck the flask in one of the sock garters on his calves, and started pulling up his pants.<br/>
<br/>
“You’d trip on your own feet like a woman in heels, right?” Brienne said, scornfully, but he raised his head and his grass green eyes looked so desperate that she immediately regretted making fun of him.<br/>
“Sorry...” She muttered, while Sansa went to unlock the door.<br/>
“No, wait. I’m the one who must apologize. I’ve been rude, earlier, on the platform. I was... nervous. I shouldn’t have dragged you into my argument with Cersei, beanpole.”<br/>
“If you don’t want to be rude, stop calling me beanpole. It’s Brian.” Brienne stated, her mouth set in a straight line, ready for resuming the fight - even though the man in front of her looked much more vulnerable than the one she’d met no more than an hour before, and not only because she’d just seen him half undressed.<br/>
“Brian...” He repeated, searching her eyes behind the glasses, and his slurring sounded dangerously close to her real name. “My name is Jaime. Jaime Hill. It used to be Jaime Lannister, but since my father disowned me <em>twice</em> I may very well stop using his name.”<br/>
“That Jaime Lannister?” Sansa asked, doing a double take.<br/>
Jaime was fidgeting with the buttons of his trousers and spoke without raising his head. “There’s no other men like me, only me. So I guess the answer is yes.”<br/>
<br/>
The Gods had a very twisted sense of humor indeed.<br/>
Brienne wasn’t a gossip addicted, and didn’t usually have enough money to buy newspapers, but she must have been blind and deaf for the last six months not to hear about Jaime “the Kingslayer” Lannister - now that she met him in person, she realized that the coarse-grained photograph she’d seen on the front page of the Riverlands Chronicle didn’t do him justice at all. The man had been in the middle of the biggest political scandal of the last decade, and his role in it was still deemed controversial, to say the least.<br/>
Heir of a tycoon from the Westerlands, he’d been placed by his father in the team of Senator Aerys Targaryen before the last election. He seemed no more than a rich kid with a pretty face, an influential family name, and no experience in politics, who’d previously spent a lifetime chasing his dream in the music industry.<br/>
But after Aerys won, he remained in the circle of his closest advisors, and was appointed as contact person between the new president and the Seven’s Guard, the national security agency - the same agency to which, four years later, he reported the president for an alleged attempt of a coup.<br/>
As far as Brienne recalled, the tabloids wrote there was no evidence to support his accusation, but the rumors were enough to make Aerys resign. Some even insinuated that Lannister had an affair with the First Lady, and that they’d planned the whole thing just to elope, because soon after the scandal both of them disappeared. Evidently the newspapers had been wrong about that, because Jaime Lannister was currently drinking in his underwear in the restrooms of a Pullman car, ready for a jazz tour in Dorne, and Mrs. Rhaella Targaryen was certainly not with him.<br/>
Brienne had had some absurd days in her life, but this one outdid them all, by far.<br/>
<br/>
“Do you need some help?”<br/>
Brienne asked, irritated, after the fourth time the man tried, and failed, to put a button through the buttonhole.<br/>
It was more of a mockery than a real question, but Jaime answered “Yes, please.”<br/>
Brienne looked at Sansa but her friend just shrugged then shoved her lightly towards the other end of the lounge. By the time she reached him, she was sure her face was aflame, in a way it had been only on that infamous night at The Crossroads.<br/>
Jaime, in the meanwhile, looked at her expectantly. He kept the edges of his button flap in place with one hand, until she reached for them. Then he smiled at her - grateful, unguarded - and started talking again. He’d seemed a chatty one from the beginning, but now it was as if her offer of help had opened a breach in a dam, and all the words - and the bourbon - flooded in. “Thanks, buddy! You know, I usually manage to do it on my own but I don’t hold my booze well, and it’s so fucking ironic, because Cersei’s the one who used to be an alcoholic, I never drank before the Aerys thing, and even now I just do it when I’m blue, and tonight I’m so blue, bluer than... your eyes, I guess, but please don’t tell Cersei about this because she would like nothing better than finding some reason to fire me, and I do need this job, and if it weren’t for Tyrion...”<br/>
Brienne had managed to pull up his suspenders and was trying to tuck his shirt properly in the waistband of his trousers.<br/>
Somehow she was grateful for all his drunk prattling, because she could focus on his words - he’d been disowned the first time, because he left the family business to join his cousin in the band... - instead than on the shape of his crotch - then she married Bobby, and cheated on both the husband and the lover... - on how close her hands were to his skin, how they were brushing his underpants while she worked on the last button - and then everything went downhill, and he always felt like getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop...<br/>
“Done!”<br/>
Brienne released the breath she’d been holding since she came near, checked the state of Jaime’s clothes, and was about to step back when her eye fell on his right hand.<br/>
<br/>
She didn’t notice it on the platform, because he was wearing gloves, and hadn’t seen it immediately in the dimly lit lounge: the hand had been badly injured, possibly burned, the skin was raw and scarred in some places and thin and pale in others, and from the way it rested limp she understood it probably had lost some mobility too, hence his struggling with the buttons.<br/>
She took it in her own, lifted it up gently. It was bigger than hers, just a bit.<br/>
“What happened to your hand?” Perhaps she was being blunt, but men were blunt and careless all the time.<br/>
Her words, or maybe her gesture, silenced Jaime all at once, and he raised his head to look at her in the eye. Not grass, something darker: Sansa would have said emerald or jade, but Brienne had spent her childhood in the lush valley of her island, and Jaime’s eyes were a moss shade, the tears that threatened to spill from them made her ache to touch them, as she would have caressed the soft carpet on the north-facing side of a trunk, wiping away the dew.<br/>
“Something you won’t read on the tabloids. They’d been quite inaccurate about Aerys <em>willing</em> resignation.” He answered in a whisper.<br/>
Brienne watched Jaime’s hand, trembling in her own, and wondered what else the press had been wrong about.<br/>
<br/>
“Ehm... Brian?” Sansa cleared her throat, and Brienne released Jaime’s hand.<br/>
“What’s up Alain? I...” She was still trying to find something coherent to say when Jaime chimed in.<br/>
“Alain? Is that Myrish?”<br/>
Brienne stifled a laughter, and the awkward moment suddenly passed. She moved on the side, retrieved Jaime’s jacket from the small couch nearby and gave it to him, carefully avoiding to touch him, this time. He was too tipsy to notice it, anyway. Somehow, he managed to put the jacket on without further help.<br/>
“Well, dude, thanks.” Jaime said, and raised both his arms as if he was about to hug her. Brienne took a step backwards, and it all ended in a clumsy pat on her shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
“Wait!” Sansa stopped him as he walked past her towards the door. She briskly fixed his collar and smoothed his tie, then looked at him up and down and nodded in approval. “One last thing: I heard you’re in berth one with Tyrion. You’d better go there instead than in the sitting room... walk slowly, and if you stumble blame it on the train moving too fast...”<br/>
“Thanks to you too, Ale... Alyn...”<br/>
“Just call me Al, fine?”<br/>
Jaime answered with a smile, and reached for the latch.<br/>
“Guys, you saved my life.” He added, before slipping out in the aisle.<br/>
<br/>
——-<br/>
Brienne didn’t like at all the way Sansa looked at her when the door closed behind Jaime.<br/>
“Stop doing that.”<br/>
“Doing what?”<br/>
“Looking at me as if I just... Just...”<br/>
“Just helped one of the hottest man we’ve ever seen to button up his pants?” Sansa smirked.<br/>
“I was trying to be sarcastic.”<br/>
“A pity he was too drunk to get it...”<br/>
Sansa latched again the door, came closer and sat down on the couch, stretching and then sprawling in the small space of the lounge in a very unladylike manner.<br/>
“Gods, now I get why you wear trousers all the time. They’re so damn comfortable.” She commented.<br/>
Brienne leaned against the sink, but it was too high to sit on it and too low to prop against it with her elbows, so she moved close to Sansa and asked her to scoot over. With their bottoms squeezed in the tiny sofa, Brienne turned towards Sansa and adjusted her mustache, that had slipped slightly on one side. Sansa smiled, then smiled more widely, then started laughing, quietly at first, then more loudly, hysterically, and Brienne felt thankful for the unceasing noise of the train wheels on the rails when she followed her, laughing until they both had tears in their eyes.<br/>
“Would you have imagined, this morning when we woke up, that we would end in the restrooms of a train to Dorne, running away from the mob, posing as men and listening to the Kingslayer’s drunk confessions?” Sansa asked when she finally managed to stop her laughter.<br/>
Brienne shook her head, trying to calm down. Of course she wouldn’t have imagined this, and she hadn’t had the time to think through her own feelings about it. She didn’t know if she actually wanted to think through her own feelings, because right now they were even more complicated than the usual mess. “Well, when I told you I would have liked to turn our lives around, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind...” She answered.<br/>
“I bet Jaime Lannister rambling on the fuzzy end of the lollipop wasn’t what you had in mind!” Sansa laughed again. “Though I’m sure you wouldn’t mind getting the end of <em>his</em> lollipop...” She added, winking.<br/>
Brienne scowled and flushed at the same time. “Gods, Sansa, I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation.”<br/>
“I know a crush when I see one.” Sansa said, looking at her sideways.<br/>
“Not your best joke.” Brienne retorted.<br/>
“I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation <em>again</em>, Brie.”<br/>
“Because you keep on trying to persuade me to chase men. Usually unattainable men...”<br/>
“I wouldn’t say so!” Sansa replied sharply. “Hyle didn’t seem that unattainable...”<br/>
“...but was definitely unqualifiable...”<br/>
“Right. And I never tried to convince you to give Tormund a chance...”<br/>
“Gods forbid!”<br/>
“I’m just saying that you’re not a septa, and you might have some fun, instead waiting for Prince Charming.” She concluded. They’d been having this conversation again and again for ages.<br/>
“It’s not... I’m not <em>waiting for Prince Charming.</em>”<br/>
“Good. You shouldn’t. Any woman should. Ramsay looked like the perfect gentleman, in the beginning, smooth, fascinating...” Sansa shuddered. Brienne placed her hand on her friend’s arm. She knew very well the reason Sansa refused to get involved in any relationship that might last more than a night. Back in the first days of their acquaintance, she had to help her with some bad physical injuries, but the ones Sansa bore in her soul were far worse.<br/>
On some nights, she still woke Brienne up because she couldn’t sleep after a nightmare, and they ended up cuddling like a mother and her little, scared child. They never talked about that in the morning.<br/>
They talked plenty about Brienne’s few, decidedly unsatisfactory experiences with men, instead.<br/>
“I’m not waiting for Prince Charming, but I’m not going to be with someone just because he’s alive and his dick works either...”<br/>
Sansa grimaced. “Please tell me Hyle <em>didn’t actually say that</em>...”<br/>
Brienne sighed. “There’s a reason why I’m still a virgin...”<br/>
The reason was more likely her own ugly face, and her muscled arms, and her personality that Roelle had once categorized as an unique mix of dullness, stubbornness and useless suffragette-like bullshit. She was a teen, back then, and those words hurt her badly. When Westerosi women were granted the right to vote, few years later, it felt a personal revenge. She still couldn’t do anything about all the rest but live with it. With it, and without a man, but currently dressed as one.<br/>
Sansa extricated herself from the seat and stood up. “Hyle was a dick.” She pontificated. “Good thing that Jaime Lannister didn’t seem too much of one.”<br/>
Brienne looked up at her. “You can’t say that just because he’s way more handsome, Sansa, did you hear him on the platform?”<br/>
“I did, and I heard him here a few moments ago. He apologized. As far as I recall Hyle never did it.”<br/>
Brienne grumbled, because it was true. Sansa went on. “He’s been an asshole while sober and all kind and lovely while drunk. I’d be more worried if he did the opposite. <em>Drēje udra isse averilla.</em>”<br/>
“What???”<br/>
“It’s an ancient Valyrian proverb, it means that in wine there is truth. Or in bourbon, for what’s worth.” Sansa explained smugly.<br/>
“Well, either drunk or sober, I’m not hitting on him. Not while I’m pretending to be a man. Not while we’re trying to escape from Frey men. Not at all!”<br/>
Sansa looked at her reflection in the mirror, combed her hair with her hands, feigned she didn’t hear Brienne’s last words. “I think this haircut looks well on me, all in all. Maybe I might try to hit on him. Or on Oberyn. And you did see Loras? And that Addam guy? And...”<br/>
“You want to hit on them as Sansa or as <em>Alain</em>?”<br/>
“I’m pretty sure that some of them would be pleased either way.” She answered impassively.<br/>
“Oh, stop this madness, we’re not on a <em>pleasure</em> trip! If they find out that we’re women, they’ll toss out of the train, they’ll surely call the police, and probably the newspapers, and if “Late” Frey gets wind of it we’re goners...”<br/>
Sansa caressed her mustache. “I’m certain there’s a way to convince them to keep us in the band even if three or four of the guys finds it out...”<br/>
Brienne definitely didn’t need one of Sansa’s hothead moments right now. She moved her hand over her forehead, as if it could find some good idea like a dowsing rod. Somehow, it worked, because a thought came to her mind. It wasn’t exactly a good idea, but she had to try.<br/>
Brienne stood - it would not impress Sansa, but at least it made her feel more confident. “Let’s make a deal: if you behave and don’t give us away as long as we’re on this train, ask me anything when we arrive in Dorne, and I’ll do it.”<br/>
“Anything?”<br/>
“Anything.” Brienne sighed. The last time she had to bribe Sansa like that, she’d ended accepting a date at The Crossroads with Hyle. She hoped this time her friend would come up with something better. Sansa pouted, then bit her lower lip, then smacked her lips and extended her hand to shake Brienne’s one.<br/>
“Deal! I’ll behave. I swear it.” She promised, yet her grin was mischievous.<br/>
“What am I supposed to do, then?”<br/>
“Oh, I’ll tell you when we reach Dorne.” Sansa replied, then hurried to the door. “Now let’s go back before Tyrion starts wondering if we slipped into the toilet. Do you think the restaurant car is still open?”<br/>
<br/>
Brienne stopped in front of the mirror for a moment. She had often talked with Sansa of going away from The Twins, of finding a more steady job, of changing their lives - but she would never have thought that it would happen this way. She had had some weird days in her life, and this one, the first of her new life, was undoubtedly the weirdest of them all.<br/>
She straightened her shoulders and inhaled deeply. Without the too small coat and jacket, her flamboyant shirt could almost pass for something a male musician would wear for a concert, the suspenders tightened on her small breasts, beard and mustache looked natural enough and concealed her plump lips. She would pretend to be Brian for another couple of days, then get a new identity in Dorne, focus on music and forget about the shooting.<br/>
<br/>
The only thing that didn’t go well with her outfit were her eyes. They still were a woman’s eyes, too big and blue. Jaime Lannister, even in his drunk state and through the thick frames had noticed them.<br/>
The train jolted, she had to grip the edge of the sink to hold steady. The metal was cold under her fingers, unlike Jaime’s scarred hand - that was warm and soft, she could almost still feel his touch - maybe Sansa was right to urge her to find a man, she was so touch-starved that even their innocuous contact had felt somehow thrilling.<br/>
Of course Brienne didn’t have a crush on him. After a life on the receiving end of scorn and mockery, she knew better than to judge by appearances: it took much more than a handsome face to win her heart. Furthermore, they certainly started off on the wrong foot.<br/>
<br/>
Yet she couldn’t deny that he was intriguing.<br/>
Maybe it was just that usually men didn’t apologize for mistreating her - Brienne wondered what he would have done if she weren’t posing as <em>Brian</em> - maybe she could blame the slivers of his past he’d talked about, the hints that there was something more than what all Westeros knew of him. As Tyrion had stated, they definitely all had quite an interesting history.<br/>
And then, if Brienne had to be honest with herself, what really sent her was that she’d felt needed, trusted - it was nothing but a gut feeling, barely describable, she’d felt almost <em>wanted</em>, even if only for a moment. By a man she just met, a man who didn’t know at all that she was a woman, and who had had a relationship with his beautiful (hateful, but still beautiful) cousin, her brain reminded her.<br/>
That he looked so open and breakable and his eyes were like the forest in summer, that was just irrelevant.<br/>
<br/>
The door of the lounge opened and Sansa peeked in from the corridor.<br/>
“You ok?”<br/>
“Yeah. Fine.” Brienne answered. She knew that Sansa knew she wasn’t fine at all. “Let’s go find us something to eat.”<br/>
<br/>
She would get out of the train in Sunspear in less than two days, dress as a woman again, put her lips on the mouthpiece of her sax instead of on a man’s mouth - especially not on Jaime Lannister’s lips, not on the soft skin of his neck - and forget about him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The proverb Sansa cites is some sort of Valyrian version of “in vino veritas”! 🍷</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. First bridge - Tyrion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“If you want to read it, just ask.” Tyrion suggested bluntly from behind the newspaper, while Cersei, seated across from him, squinted as she tried to decipher the words upside down on the reversed flap of the page.<br/>
“Is it that bad?” She asked.<br/>
“...”<em>the most interesting moment of the whole show was by far the big scene between the conductor and the lead vocalist, Mr Selmy, after the end of the concert</em>”...”<br/>
“What the heck!” Cersei screamed, and snatched the <em>Twins Evening News</em> out of his hand.<br/>
Tyrion sighed, then yawned, while his sister read aloud some excerpts from the review of the show they had the previous evening, the one after which she kicked Barristan out of the band.<br/>
“How can he possibly say that our sound is “<em>dull</em>”? “<em>Graceless conducting style</em>”? How dares this...this...” She checked the name at the bottom of the article, and the outrage in her eyes suddenly changed into sheer rage. “Seaworth. I know that skunk, he’s friends with Bobby’s brother...”<br/>
“He’s the most influential music reporter of both the Riverlands and the Crownlands, Cersei, no surprise that he’s close to Stannis.”<br/>
“...that’s why he has in it with me!”<br/>
“Come on, Cers! We both know that you joined the band just because you were Robert’s girlfriend, and he made you conduct because you weren’t able to learn how to play any instrument, not in a million years.” He replied wearily.<br/>
“But I <em>improved</em>! A lot...” Cersei retorted, all pride and self-satisfaction. Gods, he would never have thought that she could become <em>more delusional</em> since she quit drinking. Actually, Addam was the one who did most of the work.<br/>
“Right. Now you almost get the difference between a waltz and a four-four.” He conceded, but Cersei was too focused on her tirade to notice.<br/>
“...And, tell me, how is Bobby’s solo trumpet career faring?” She sneered. It wasn’t faring well.<br/>
“That’s just because Arryn is an awful manager, not because Bobby lacks of musical talent.” Unlike her, Tyrion wanted to add, but he held his tongue. Cersei was quite in a good mood after the quickie with Lancel - wait, no, she’d been in berth four, Bronn then - but Tyrion knew better than to push his luck.<br/>
His sister went on reading. “I absolutely didn’t fire Barristan! He’s the one who walked away!” After her umpteenth gratuitous outburst, and the man had been all too patient.<br/>
“It’s good that I was still in touch with Jaime, we would have cancelled the second part of the tour, if he hadn’t accepted.” Tyrion grumbled.<br/>
“Of course he would accept, Tyrion! We’re <em>family</em>!”<br/>
<br/>
Tyrion snorted. True, they were family (a mess of a family, starting with uncle Tywin and down to the horribly spoiled five years old nephews of uncle Tygett).<br/>
The three of them grew up together at Casterly, close as brothers - Jaime surely loved him as a brother much more than Cersei did.<br/>
And it was true as well that Jaime and Cersei had been fucking for years, since they were teens, after aunt Jo’s death, through Cersei’s two marriages with Robert, and until he found out about Os. And Os. And Os, too.<br/>
After their breakup, from time to time, she would reach out to Jaime when she needed something, and sometimes he would cater to her whims, as long as she didn’t ask that they get back together.<br/>
<br/>
This didn’t mean that Jaime was some sort of lapdog that would come back to her whenever she wanted, no matter what. Especially after the whole Aerys thing, and after Cersei never visited him while he was in the hospital afterwards, never so much as phoned.<br/>
Tyrion didn’t expect anything else from his sister, he’d known for ages that Cers was emotionally dysfunctional, to say the least. Jaime knew her as well, and yet she managed to hurt him all the same.<br/>
<br/>
Tyrion had struggled to convince him to join the band again - not that Cersei would care about it. He wasn’t even sure his cousin would show up at the platform until he actually arrived.<br/>
Jaime’s life at the moment was a complete and utter disaster. After the scandal, his father kept him at a distance, instead of welcoming him back in the family holding company. President Aerys was a deranged sadist, who beat his wife and did actually plot to restore monarchy, but Tywin Lannister was more concerned about bad publicity than about what really happened in King’s Landing and during the fire at the Targaryen mansion. No surprise that Tyrion and his uncle never got along.<br/>
After Aerys resignation, Jaime moved to Riverrun, where he lived in the basement apartment of one of his former subordinates. Peck and his wife Pia were kind enough, but Jaime did definitely need more than some shallow kindness.<br/>
The last time Tyrion visited him, he found out that Jaime had even started drinking - he had always been the sober one, the reliable one, the one who tried to convince Cersei to give up alcohol when the booze was still legal. His cousin was heading dangerously towards self destruction and Tyrion didn’t like it at all.<br/>
So when Cersei and Barristan had their final fight, it almost seemed a sign from the Gods, and Tyrion was already on the phone, asking for Peck’s number to the switchboard, before Selmy even packed his suitcase.<br/>
<br/>
Obviously Cersei was oblivious to that, and she kept on thinking that Jaime accepted their offer because he owed her something, and not because he had no job and no better options and a trip to Dorne - even with her, even funded by his family’s money as the <em>Queensguard</em> mostly was - was still better than sulking alone in Riverrun for a whole month.<br/>
There was still the alcoholic problem, but Tyrion had more chances to convince his cousin to quit if he was within his reach. Jaime was a terrible drinker, he just needed two sips of liquor to get high as a red comet, anyway, they had three weeks of time to deal with it.<br/>
Now Jaime snored peacefully in his berth, Cersei went on reading and complaining, and Tyrion knew he’d done the right thing.<br/>
<br/>
Cersei’s fingers rumpled the edge of the newspaper, and a title on the front page caught Tyrion’s eye. “<em>Massacre in a garage in Upper Twin</em>”, it read, not unusual in a city ruled by the mob. Yet the subheading was quite interesting: “<em>The police looks for witnesses. Two tall women with a big suitcase were seen fleeing from the crime scene.</em>”<br/>
<br/>
Tyrion thought back at the two female musicians they met in the afternoon at Mance’s. They didn’t seem the type to mess with Frey gangs, so it probably had been just an unfortunate accident.<br/>
Speak of the Stranger, <em>Brian</em> and <em>Alain</em> came back from the restaurant car, carrying sandwiches and pastries and chatting quietly.<br/>
Cersei glanced at them while they passed. “You know, Tyrion, there’s something odd about those two new boys.”<br/>
“What do you mean? Odd?” He replied, playing dumb.<br/>
“Oh, nothing, it’s just... just my ulcer...” She patted her stomach.<br/>
“As I already told you a hundred times, your ulcer isn’t a burglar alarm, Cers.”<br/>
“But it works like one!” Cersei retorted. Talking about her ulcer evidently made it ache, because Cersei put down the newspaper and picked up her purse to find her pills.<br/>
Tyrion arched his eyebrows and made a face.<br/>
“Oh, fuck, Tyrion!” She snapped.<br/>
“I wish I could, sister, but you forbade Tysha to come with us on this tour, so it will be just me and my hand for the next three weeks.”<br/>
“Tyrion! Gods, you’re disgusting.”<br/>
Tyrion guffawed. In the meanwhile, the two new musicians reached their seats, blissfully forgotten by Cersei’s ulcer.<br/>
His laughter faded, and he smiled to himself. He was quite sure he’d done the right thing again. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Sansa II</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter contains mention of past abuse. It’s not very detailed, but please be careful if it’s a trigger for you!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The train rattled towards King’s Landing in the middle of the night, leaving behind the Riverlands.<br/>
Sansa twisted and turned in the berth. She wished she’d brought her earplugs and a blindfold for the eyes - but no believable man would have done that.<br/>
Brienne, on the lower cot, slept like a rock. She couldn’t conceive how her friend managed to be comfortable in the small space of the train, tall as she was. But even if Brienne’s feet dangled unashamedly in the aisle, whereas her own barely bounced on the edge of the berth with every jolt of the train, Sansa was the insomniac one.<br/>
Outside of the window, she spotted the lights of the Kingsroad Highway, while the railway flanked it on the eastern side of the Green Fork. She wondered how close they were to The Crossroads: she’d never traveled more South than there.<br/>
It reminded her of her escape from Dreadfort, she remained awake for almost the whole two days pullman ride to The Twins. But this time her feelings were entirely different.<br/>
She’d been scared, back then, scared to death and sad and helpless in more ways than one.<br/>
<br/>
Now she should have been <em>more</em> scared - she faced death more closely, yet a machine-gun was a neat and fast way to meet the Stranger.<br/>
With Ramsay, she’d been sure she would die, sooner or later, but probably later. He oh so loved to torture her, to test the limits of how much he could hurt her without leaving signs that someone outside their house could identify, to threaten her, to make her feel she was never safe - not even when he was at work and she locked herself in the spare room, because he left his <em>well trained</em> pitbull roaming free in their home. She had to put sleeping drugs in the beast’s food on the day she fled to safety, and she’d been able to lay hands on the pills just because she pretended that she couldn’t walk with the plastered foot.<br/>
Sansa trembled even in the warmth of the too high set heating system of the train.<br/>
<br/>
No, having “Late” Frey on their heels couldn’t match the nameless fear her former lover could instill into her. She was stronger, now, independent and more confident, she had a friend she could trust, and even if she had to abandon so suddenly all the small certainties she’d built for herself in the last years, she wasn’t afraid of what might come.<br/>
She’d learned to look at her future with a sort of blithe carelessness, to enjoy the thrill of her one-night-stands, to be the life and soul of the party whenever they remained in the clubs after playing, to plan ahead only one day at a time.<br/>
The ordeal she and Brienne had gone through that afternoon was becoming more distant the more South the express ran, and the one they’d just put themselves in was very likely going to be one of the funniest experiences of her life. It was the kind of adventure she would tell to her nephews and nieces, if she ever lived to see them, the kind of adventure that would leave them wondering how much of their granny’s story was true, and how much concocted.<br/>
<br/>
The image of herself, gray and withered, with a couple of frolicsome urchins on her knees asking about the fabulous trip, lightened a lot her mood but still didn’t help her to get some sleep. She almost considered waking up Jaime Lannister to ask him some booze, since that never failed to leave her drowsy. But there was Tyrion on his lower berth, so she climbed down quietly the ladder and headed to the restroom aisle, instead.<br/>
<br/>
Sansa looked over her shoulders, then snuck in the woman’s lounge and locked the door. The lounge was similar to the men’s one, but had a wider mirror and a dressing table with a chair in place of the couch.<br/>
She drank some water, went to the loo, then sat at the table.<br/>
She took off the pajama shirt and the woolen undershirt, then, with a sigh of relief, the restraining bra made its way to the top of the pile.<br/>
Sansa stretched her arms and rolled her shoulders, then massaged a bit her bare breasts. They were small enough to go unnoticed with the tight bra, but not enough to avoid the unpleasant constriction sensation. She yawned, looked up, and then laughed hard at her mustached, bare chested self.<br/>
<br/>
Outside, the world took shape again in the faint light of dawn.<br/>
The railroad ran along the shore of a big lake, now, so big that it could just be the God’s Eye. They <em>did</em> pass The Crossroads.<br/>
Sansa looked out of the window, mesmerized, like she would do in her childhood home, when she woke up and discovered that snow had fallen during the night, and the world was now silent and pristine. Her boots and Arya’s, later, would not discover a path, but rather make brand new ones. She didn’t feel scared: she felt as new as an untouched white field.<br/>
Big trees grew close to the lakeside: oaks, elms and maples, with dark trunks and multicolored foliage emerging from the mist. Sansa touched the short hair above her neck. Her mother used to tell her that she resembled a Weirwood tree, but truly her hair was more copper than red. It would grow again under the Dornish sun, dark on the ends and ginger at the root, soft like autumn leaves.<br/>
Everything would be alright.<br/>
<br/>
Noises came from the aisle. Someone else had woken up and was entering the men’s toilet.<br/>
She put on the bra and the pajamas, waited until they locked the other restroom door, and hurried back to the berths.<br/>
Brienne had moved in her cot, and was curled up like a baby, almost hugging her knees in the narrow bed. She looked unusually small, and Sansa felt a surge of tenderness - she would have caressed her head like she used to do with Bran and Rickon, but she didn’t want to wake her up.<br/>
<br/>
What an odd pair they made. Sansa wished she had half of her friend’s steadfastness. She loved Brienne’s ability to fend for herself, her strength, and the way it coexisted with her innate gentleness. On the other hand, Brienne yearned for Sansa’s easiness when she dealt with men - she was so used to get mocked for her unusual appearance that she didn’t even consider someone could look past that, and see how deeply wonderful she was.<br/>
Sansa knew for sure Brienne could find such a man, but chances grew thin if she didn’t even try to date someone. She wondered briefly if she could use the deal they made to force her into a romantic attempt with Jaime Lannister, when they reached Dorne.<br/>
Of course Brienne would argue she didn’t have a chance with the likes of him, but Sansa had seen enough, in the restroom, to disagree with her friend’s presumptive objection. Gods, the man got half hard while she worked on his buttons, dressed as a man and clumsy as an ice spider in a Myrish glass shop, just because of her blue, blue eyes. She wasn’t even sure Brienne actually realized it.<br/>
Furthermore, a handsome guy with a tormented past was exactly the type Brienne would silently swoon over - not Sansa, she’d promised to herself she was not going to fall in love with a troublesome man anymore in her whole life.<br/>
<br/>
Yet now their lives had changed for good, so maybe they would manage to change as well. She hoped that they both would become better, and happier.<br/>
Sansa picked up the small blanket and tucked Brienne in, then she climbed up in her berth, and closed her eyes.<br/>
<br/>
——-<br/>
<br/>
“Guys, wake up! Take your lazy asses out from your berths, get dressed and meet me in half an hour in the restaurant car. We must have breakfast before the train reaches King’s Landing and it gets too crowded.” Tyrion shouted with a commanding voice that reminded Sansa of her septa, when she scolded their unruly bunch of five in Winterfell. Admittedly, Mordane wouldn’t have said “<em>asses</em>”.<br/>
Sansa rubbed her eyes and stopped her hands, before they followed the instinct to scratch under her nose, where the faux mustache stuck precariously to the skin. She pressed on the whiskers, instead, to make them adhere better, then climbed down awkwardly. Her limbs ached more that she’d have imagined, especially the left ankle.<br/>
<br/>
“Gods, I’m getting old.” She muttered to Brienne, who sat on the cot, still half asleep, and was slowly retrieving the suitcase from under the bed.<br/>
“Gods be good, Alain, I could store all of Cersei’s ulcer pills in those bags you have under your eyes!” Tyrion confirmed, peeping into their space. He looked worried. “What have you been up to, tonight?”<br/>
“Insomnia.” Sansa answered, narrowing her eyes. She made a step backwards, and inadvertently stumbled on Brienne’s suitcase, closing it. “Well, mr. Lannister, if I had been having a party in my berth, you’d probably have to pull the emergency brake to make me stop.” Sansa laughed, praying that Tyrion hadn’t noticed the high heels sandals inside of Brienne’s suitcase.<br/>
“Please call me Tyrion. And I hope you’ll invite me if you ever give that party! See you in the restaurant car.” Tyrion replied with a wink, waved at them and disappeared.<br/>
Brienne yawned, unaware of the risk they just ran, and kept on blinking her eyes until she retrieved the glasses from the drop-leaf shelf. “You’re getting old? I think I’m getting too used to these lenses. I feel like I’m drunk without them.” She whispered.<br/>
“Jaime!” They heard Tyrion yelling down the aisle. “What in the Seven Hells are you doing in the ladies?”<br/>
Brienne raised her head, and Sansa preposterously thought that she could advise Jaime to put on glasses, instead of hiding in the toilet to guzzle his bourbon flask.<br/>
“The men’s ones were occupied. Anyway, I’m not the only one who’s been using it.” Jaime retorted, then raised his voice. “Guys, anyone forgot his undershirt?”<br/>
Sansa grew pale, touched her bare torso under the pajamas and looked in the aisle, where Jaime was holding and waving the shirt she’d left in the restroom. She sighed and dodged behind the berths.<br/>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Sansa III</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
The restaurant car was already packed with customers when Sansa and Brienne walked through the door: salesmen who went back to the capital after a business trip in the North, some seasonal farm workers traveling in third class, migrating south like storks, upper class girls heading to a fashion parade in Highgarden, even a family with two loud little kids - the older was about Rickon’s age when she last saw him, six years before, and Sansa had to avert her eyes not to recall that her little brother would be in high school by now.<br/>
In the end, the band members used both the men’s and the women’s toilets on their car, to get ready more quickly, but the two of them were the last in the line, and the last to join the breakfast. <br/> 
There was a reason why Sansa never stayed overnight when she slept with a man: said man would wake up with morning-breath, ruffled hair, sweaty armpits, complaining about the cold water, complaining about <em>everything</em>, begging for a coffee, forgetting her name. She’d had plenty of it - <em>fourteen</em> of it - that morning, and furthermore without the sex, so she wasn’t exactly in her best mood. <br/>
<br/>
Sansa surveyed the room, and thought they would end up eating at the counter, when someone shouted Brienne’s name - <em>Brian’s</em> name. <br/>
Jaime Lannister sat at a table for four with Addam, the first violin, and waved at them with a wide grin. <br/>
At the table on the other side of the aisle there were a dark haired guy whose name Sansa didn’t remember, the tuba player - Davon or Daven -, Crabb, who was sitting as far as he could from Bronn and his jokes about his unfortunate first name, and Ronnet-but-call-me-Ronnie, the oboist. <br/>
<br/>
“I saved you the seats guys.” Jaime explained when they approached, and his glassy eyes told that he kept on drinking in the mornings as well. He looked at both of them a bit too intently for Sansa’s liking, but his smile didn’t falter. “Thought that we rookies should give each other a hand, even if I’m short of one.” <br/>
Sansa glanced at the dark glove on his right hand. <br/>
“You’re hardly a rookie, Jaime! You’ve played with us for longer than the whole other table all together.” Addam pointed out, nodding towards the other side of the aisle. <br/>
Sansa slipped into the window seat, leaving Brienne to face Jaime. Her knees bumped against Addam’s, and she smiled: Brienne’s and Jaime’s legs would surely get entangled under the small table, and if Brienne’s blush was any indication, there was no way she could avoid it. Jaime didn’t seem to be bothered at all by the accommodation, instead. <br/>
They ordered their breakfast - two slices of toast and butter and dark coffee for Brienne, eggs and bread and cheese for Sansa, and since all expenses were on the band, she allowed herself a lemon cake too - then they started chatting of this and that with the other men. <br/>
Jaime’s talk had the same flood-like pace they already knew from the previous evening, but today it was full of witty remarks and mischievous teasing. Brienne flushed more than she chatted. She also kept on forcing herself not to stare openly at Jaime’s handsome face. <br/>
<br/>
The waitress came with their food, and Sansa was with her fork in mid air when the table jerked. Both Jaime and Brienne jumped in their seats, and were looking at the redhead oboist, who’d just either said or done something to the young server. <br/> 
Brienne had a formidable angry scowl, while Jaime’s eyes had gone almost murderous. The girl’s face was flustered and humiliated, instead. The poor thing cringed and Sansa wished she had the guts to punch Ronnie quite hard: whatever he’d said or done to her was clearly unwanted and unwelcome, but he didn’t seem to notice it. <br/>
When the waitress hurried away, he turned to the dark haired boy and boasted about it. “Watch and learn, Gendry!” <br/>
“Ronnie, the only thing Gendry can learn from you is how to make women flee.” Daven or Davon commented. <br/>
“That’s what she’s doing now, Dav, but you’ll see: she’ll seek me out later. By the way, find yourself another berth tonight, because that chick and I will need privacy, and I’m quite loud when...” He ended the sentence with an unmistakably lewd gesture. <br/>
Sansa turned to check if the family was far enough - luckily it was. <br/>
Davon or Daven shook his head, while Gendry had gone almost Brienne-red, and Crabb was bracing himself for the joke that was probably going to come in five, four, three, two... <br/>
“That’s what all women want: they make a fuss about it, but in the end it’s either money, or dick - and I’m not talking about you, Crabb.” <br/>
Crabb rolled his eyes, while Ronnie went on, smugly, too pleased with his own talking. “Come to think of it, sometimes they want both, but not in my case.” <br/>
“Too small?” Daven or Davon mocked him. <br/>
“Why, no! We’re jazz players, we’re stone broke by definition!” Sansa could agree on the last sentence, but the next one made her wince - as if she weren’t wincing enough already. <br/>
“<em>Big red</em> is not so little, indeed!” <br/>
Gods. This man made Bronn look like a court gentleman by comparison. Even Addam knit his brows in a grimace. <br/>
<br/>
Brienne, at Sansa’s side, was fuming. She straightened her shoulders. <br/>
“Have you ever talked with a woman for more than a second, Ronnet?” She spat. <br/>
“Why, have you?” Ronnie laughed without even sensing the venom in her tone. “What’s the matter with talking, anyway, if she can put her mouth to better use? The more she keeps silent, the better!” <br/>
In the blink of an eye, Brienne was on her feet and had grabbed Ronnet by his shirt. <br/>
“Hey, man! I’m not speaking about your sister!” Ronnie shouted, and they suddenly had the whole restaurant car looking at them with open mouths and widened eyes. If they weren’t on a rattling train, the silence would have been unbearable. <br/>
Only then, Sansa realized that Jaime was standing too, close to Brienne and Ronnie. He placed his hand on Brienne’s arm, his whole body was tense too, but he was trying to calm her down. <br/>
“Let it go, Brian.” He whispered. <br/>
Brienne breathed heavily through her nostrils, while Ronnet tried to make himself smaller. <br/>
She let him go, with a snort, pushing him again in his seat, then looked at Jaime, straightened the glasses on her nose, and turned her back. <br/>
“Anyway, if you had a sister that resembled you, I would probably turn off the lights, or put a bag over her head...” Ronnie’s voice was quieter now, but not low enough to go unnoticed. <br/>
Brienne turned again, but Jaime preceded her, and dealt a crunching blow right on Ronnet’s nose. <br/>
The mother on the other side of the car covered his smaller son’s eyes with her hands, the girls in a table nearby shrieked, the cook behind the counter let slip the tray he was holding, while the young waitress, beside him, blushed and smiled. <br/> 
Sansa felt a smile tugging at her lips too. Tyrion, Bronn and the blond ukulele player reached their table immediately, while Ronnet whined and covered his nose with the hands. <br/>
“What’s wrong with you Lannister? You broke my nose!” <br/>
“It’s Hill, thank you very much.” Jaime answered, without even looking at him anymore, he sat down in his seat again, took a sip of his coffee and massaged his gloved hand. “Anyway, it’s not broken. If I wanted to break it, I’d have punched you with my left.” <br/>
<br/>
Ronnet picked up his jacket from the seat and stormed out from the restaurant car. <br/>
Tyrion looked at his cousin with a mix of despair and resignation. His eyes were at a height with Jaime’s ones, now that the taller man was sitting. The dwarf didn’t need to speak a word. <br/>
“I’m not going to apologize, not with that shit.” Jaime explained, calmly. <br/>
“But you will. Because finding an oboist is a goddamned challenge, and finding an oboist in one day would be impossible. Even though our current one is an impossible shit.” <br/>
The silence stretched a bit more. <br/>
In the end Jaime lowered his head and yielded. “Fine, I will. Later. And you owe me one.” <br/>
Tyrion nodded, and went back to his seat. As he tottered down the aisle, Sansa turned towards Brienne, but her friend didn’t notice her. She was staring at Jaime’s face openly, now, with a besotted smile on her face. <br/>
<br/>
The parents with the two children walked past them a moment later, and when the older boy reached Jaime he whispered “Nice hook!”. <br/> 
His mother pulled him away. <br/>
<br/>
——-<br/>
<br/>
“Crone’s tits!” Jon exclaimed, as he spotted the skyline of the ruins of the Old Red Keep. <br/>
Sansa kept her mouth shut, because they had just come back in the Pullman car after their eventful breakfast, but Crone’s tits indeed. Like her cousin, she had never been in the capital before, and the sight was stunning. <br/>
<br/>
She remained glued to the window while the train passed through the bustling western suburbs. Houses became more luxurious the more they got close to the ancient city center, and when the railroad turned to circle Visenya Hill, Sansa saw the highest tower she’d seen in her whole life. <br/> 
Another construction site nearby promised a building that was going to be even higher. <br/>
<br/>
As they arrived in Baelor Station, both Sansa and Jon ran out of the train to reach the famed statue of the Father that guarded platform seven, and touched its little toe. <br/>
The marble finger was smoothed from the constant touching. <br/>
“<em>Father give me strength</em>”, read the inscription on the base, but tourists and travelers on their first time in King’s Landing did it more as a good luck charm. It was a silly tradition, and Sansa felt childish while she looked up at the stern looking statue. It reminded her too much of her own dad, and she hurried back to the train with a lump in her throat. <br/>
“You know, I’m the first kid from my family who comes to the capital!” Jon said gleefully as they entered again in the Pullman car. “I’ll have something to brag about with my cousin Robb, when I go back in the North!” <br/>
<br/>
Luckily, they spent the rest of the day studying and playing, and she didn’t have the time to think about either the father or the Father or any other divinity. <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>A big thanks to the lovely wildlingoftarth who helped me with the first part of this chapter - all mistakes are mine. I’m posting earlier than usual this week, because of Christmas in the weekend, but the next updates will be again in the last days of the week.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Brienne III</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They reached Storm’s End at sunset. The rose painted sky was reflected in the water of the Shipbreaker bay, while the train ran along the coast. <br/>
Here in Storm’s End the bright disk was hiding behind mist and the low autumn clouds of the mainland on the West, but from Evenfall they would also see the sun - on the waning moon evenings, the sight from Tarth would resemble almost exactly its official flag. <br/>
Brienne had never been so close to her home in years. The day was not clear enough, otherwise she would probably have caught a glimpse of her island’s outline, if she turned East. <br/>
<br/>
Jaime slumped into the empty seat next to hers. He looked silently at the panorama outside the window for a while. When he spoke, his breath still smelled of alcohol. <br/>
“Your friend is quite the workaholic, isn’t he?” He said, nodding towards the corner of the car where Sansa was still rehearsing with Daven. They were going through some passages of the program of the first concert in Sunspear. <br/>
Brienne smiled. “Yeah, sh... he is. He’s very meticulous. You know, they say the bass part is the foundation of the musical building...” <br/>
“And since our rhythm section is too busy cuddling in front of the sunset, Al and Daven took it upon themselves to support the house.” Jaime commented, nodding towards the seats where the drummer and the pianist were not too covertly holding hands and whispering into each other’s ear. <br/>
Brienne hesitated. The slight disapproval in his tone reminded her of her step-mother: Roelle always spoke ill, in a very mean way, of queer people like Renly and Loras. <br/> 
“The rhythm section seems immensely happy, and Alain has always loved being the teacher’s pet so this is a win-win situation, as far as I’m concerned.” She replied coldly. <br/>
<br/>
Jaime searched her eyes. He’d started doing it at breakfast, every time he wanted to convey to her that he really meant what he said. Brienne was quite annoyed by the way he could get under her skin so easily. <br/>
“Hey, I’m not judging them. It’s just that... They remind me of Cersei and me, when we were younger. You don’t know how many times I begged her to move with me to the Riverlands, or to Dorne, where first cousin marriages are legal...” <br/>
Brienne was also annoyed by the familiarity he treated her with, as if they were old friends, even though they’d known each other for less than a day. She was very annoyed that she’d started treating him as if they were old friends, too. <br/>
“The two of them can’t get married anywhere in Westeros.” She pointed out, looking at the two lovers. <br/>
“That’s true. And my sweet cousin and I never actually cuddled in front of the sunset. We were more the <em>“let’s finish quickly before someone finds us”</em> type of couple.” Jaime sighed. “So maybe I’m just envious of the two lovebirds.” <br/>
“Do you miss her?” Brienne asked, even though she didn’t really want to know his answer. <br/>
“No.” Jaime said, without thinking about it too much. “I miss the thing I thought I had, though.” <br/>
“The thing you thought...?” <br/>
“Love.” He explained, as if he was teaching a very obvious lesson to a small child. “No matter what the likes of Cuntington say, that’s what women usually want. And men, too, pansy or otherwise. As far as I’m concerned.” <br/>
Brienne thought back at the brawl with Ronnet. Jaime hadn’t just been mad at him because of his insulting behavior towards the waitress and women in general, he had defended <em>her</em>. <br/>
No, he had defended <em>his friend Brian</em>, she forced herself to remember. <br/>
<br/>
She looked at him while he looked out of the window. He had fallen silent again. <br/> 
Jaime’s stream of words seemed to work like an electric light bulb: either on or off, with no middle way. <br/>
Brienne wondered if he would do the same when he was sober. After their brief meeting on the platform, he’d always been drunk - slightly drunk, happy drunk, contemplative drunk, maudlin drunk, high like a comet drunk. He was quite a sweet drunk. And she liked him. She liked him <em>a lot</em> - that was what annoyed her most. <br/>
But no matter what Sansa said about wine and truths, Brienne still didn’t know if they would get along when he wasn’t inebriated. <br/>
It was quite a fitting retaliation, Brienne considered, since she’d never been honest with him from the beginning: he probably wasn’t the lovely tipsy man who brightened up her trip, and she wasn’t Brian. <br/>
<br/>
“Lorath.” He stated in the end. <br/>
Brienne frowned. <br/>
“They should move to Lorath, if they’re eager to get wed. I attended to a meeting with a Lorathi delegation, once, when I was working for Aerys, and two delegates were a married couple. Two <em>male</em> delegates. They call them Boash-husbands, or something like that... Anyway, why would they freeze their asses in Lorath, if they can live in Dorne, instead?” <br/>
Brienne frowned again, and Jaime smiled wickedly. “You’ve never been in Dorne, have you?” <br/>
Brienne shook her head. <br/>
“Let’s say they’re not prudes at all. I mean, you spoke with Oberyn...” <br/>
Brienne blushed. At lunchtime, Oberyn had invited her and Sansa - Brian and Alain - to go to a club with him and his girlfriend, as soon as they arrived in Sunspear. He’d praised the place saying that they organized the best orgies of all the state. They declined the offer as politely as possible. <br/>
Jaime laughed. “I’ve never met anyone who blushes as much as you do! I bet that girlfriend of yours finds it cute, because it actually is... Cute.” <br/>
Brienne’s blush, if possible, spread even wider. “Girlfriend?” <br/>
“Oh, I assumed it because of how you spoke about women this morning...” Jaime explained, cheerfully. “You do certainly know the subject first-hand.” <br/>
“I do-do-don’t...” Brienne stammered. <br/>
Jaime passed his good hand through his hair - it really looked soft, and his face was even softer, when he averted his eyes and muttered quietly. “Well... I wouldn’t have told you’re a fairy, to be honest, in the tale I’d bet you would play the knight... But, uh, I’m not interested in men...” <br/>
“No!” Brienne exclaimed, more forcefully than she intended. “I mean, yes. But no. Yes. Oh, Gods! I... I’m straight.” <br/>
Jaime had found the courage to look at her again in the eye. <br/>
“I’m <em>absolutely</em> straight.” She went on, glanced at Sansa who was still playing. “I’ve been living with a woman for the last three years.” <br/>
It was Jaime’s face that went slightly red, this time, or maybe it was just the light of the sunset. He made a small laughter, that seemed both sad and embarrassed, and Brienne laughed too, while she thought about something different to say, to change the subject completely. <br/>
<br/>
She was a bad liar - so bad that she was quite stunned no one had unmasked them yet. She knew that talking about sex and love and feelings wasn’t only awkward, it was very dangerous, too: she would let slip a telling word, she would look in Jaime’s beautiful eyes and he would <em>know</em>... <br/>
He wasn’t interested in men, but Brienne definitely was. What was worst, the man who sat at her side was the most interesting one she’d met in years, maybe in her whole life. <br/>
<br/>
“It’s a very nice view, isn’t it?” She asked, looking at the coastline. Lame, but safe. <br/>
“It is, but I actually prefer the eastern side of the bay. The Straits of Tarth are stunning.” He explained. <br/>
“I bet they are.” Brienne sighed. She’d said another very, very lame thing to Tyrion, when he had to fill in some form for the band insurance - and of course Jaime heard it because he spent the whole day with her. <br/>
Tyrion had inquired about her last name, and she got caught off guard. She hadn’t thought about it, so she ended up telling the first one that came to her mind: the name of her island. <br/>
The dwarf asked if they came from Tarth, then, and Brienne denied having ever been there. <br/>
(Sansa had been smarter: she gave her former boyfriend surname without hesitation - to give Ramsay a hard time if someone from the Frey gangs tracked them down, she said.) <br/>
<br/>
Jaime chuckled. “Isn’t it ironic? You’re Brian <em>Tarth</em>, and you never set foot on the island!” <br/>
“Ironic indeed.” <br/>
“You know, I’ve never been there, too, but it’s said to be beautiful.” Jaime went on. “I saw Tarth once, yet. I mean, I saw it from the sea, not just the outline from the bay... We were playing on a cruise with the band, about six years ago, we sailed down the Narrow Sea from King’s Landing, heading to Oldtown. We put out to sea in the evening, the weather was shit, I argued with Cersei and the first concert didn’t go well. I’d been seasick for the whole night. Then, I went out on the deck when I woke up the next morning... the rain was gone, and there it was Tarth: green hills, white cliffs, and the waters are truly as blue as they say. It looked like one of the Seven Heavens. It was... soothing, somehow.” <br/>
Jaime moved his hands, following the shape of his memory, and Brienne felt tears pricking in her eyes. She’d never been so close to her home and she’d never been so homesick in years. <br/>
<br/>
“You really should visit it, Jaime.” She murmured, trying to conceal the emotion in her voice. <br/>
“Yeah, we both should. It would be a lovely trip.” He replied, staring into the falling night out of the window. “Do you think you could see the sun setting into the sea? From Tarth, I mean. You know, I grew up in Lannisport, and I do miss the sunsets of my youth...” <br/>
Brienne gaped at him, wondering how his thoughts could match her own so closely. She had to force herself not to take his hand in hers again. <br/>
“Evenfall is on the western coast of the Island, I’m sure you could see a beautiful sunset from there.” She said, and it sounded too dreamy to her own ears. <br/>
Dreaming was quite easy, anyway: Brienne remembered the small cove where she used to hide when she was a child, the fine white sand under her feet, the music of the waves on the shoreline, the scent of oleanders and myrtle shrubs. It would have been a lovely place to cuddle. It would have been a lovely place to do <em>everything</em>. <br/>
As she was a teen, she’d dreamed quite often about being there with a man, a man who loved her and whom she loved back. A man whose face remained just a vague shape in her mind. <br/>
In the last few hours, that imagined lover had taken form, and his form resembled too much Jaime Lannister. <br/>
Brienne shook her head. It was not possible, and dreaming about it was not safe - she’d realized that <em>nothing</em> was safe for her, when it came to this man. <br/>
“How did it go your cruise trip, after that?” <br/>
“Oh, to tell the truth, I vomited on the deck...” <br/>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Brienne IV</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Brienne moved the mouthpiece on the neck cork, while Oberyn played again an <em>A</em>. Connington had complained that his nose was still hurting, and Cersei had exempted him from the evening rehearsal, so the Dornish clarinetist was tuning the band in his place.<br/>
Cersei had insisted on doing this run-through. “To break in the new players...” She’d said.<br/>
The program was quite easy, all in all: jazz standards, a couple of ballads, nothing that they couldn’t handle easily. Brienne was more concerned by the way Cersei kept on looking at them.<br/>
<br/>
The conductor had been quite grumpy since she woke up, late in the morning.<br/>
The news of what happened in the restaurant car at breakfast made her even more upset. They all heard her arguing with Tyrion, Daven, Cleos, and even with Lancel. As Brienne learned from the other players, the <em>Queensguard</em> was definitely a Lannister business: Jaime, Cersei, Tyrion, Daven, Lancel and Cleos were all related, and those impromptu family meetings weren’t unusual.<br/>
The cousins talked Cersei out of firing Jaime, after his fight with Connington, but they couldn’t avoid the big scene she made at him just before lunch. She ranted for minutes. Jaime stood, bored, with his arms folded.<br/>
In the end, he simply turned and headed towards the car door, while she was still rambling about the loyalty to the family and the good of the band.<br/>
“Hey! No one walks away from me!” Cersei shouted.<br/>
“Come and stop me, coz.” Jaime retorted.<br/>
Cersei’s gaze was so menacing that, had she been a queen of old, she would really have sent someone to stop and execute him.<br/>
Jaime pushed the door. “Gonna have lunch, guys.” He said, and went out.<br/>
Brienne scrambled out of the Pullman car after him, and felt Cersei’s eyes on her back, until the other woman yelled. “Tyrion! Where the heck are my ulcer pills?”<br/>
After that, Cersei watched her - and Sansa - all the time, except the couple of hours when she disappeared in the ladies lounge with Lancel in the afternoon.<br/>
When Cersei asked repeatedly to have a rehearsal, Brienne had been quite sure that she was more interested in putting them to the test than in perfecting the sound of the band. She decided to keep a stiff upper lip, anyway, and prayed that Ms. Lannister hadn’t realized they were women in disguise.<br/>
<br/>
The neckstrap of the saxophone kept on getting caught in her jacket collar. She blew to check the <em>B</em> and then looked at Sansa, who was adjusting the machine heads of her bass.<br/>
“What’s that?” Cersei asked, and Brienne followed the line of her baton up to the contrabass belly: right over one of the F-holes, there were eight small, round-shaped ones.<br/>
“Bought it second hand!” Brienne explained quickly, blushing. She wondered if some of the bullets had remained inside the sound box.<br/>
“The previous owner was a man from Astapor. They do love to roughhouse their toys...” Sansa added, winking, and turning up and down the hand that held the bow.
Brienne rolled her eyes. The idea of “<em>low profile</em>” did definitely not sit well with her friend.<br/>
Cersei furrowed her brow, as if she didn’t understand Sansa’s joke - it was weird, Brienne thought, because any good conductor would surely be aware of the endless diatribe between the advocates of Astapori bow and the ones of Myrish bow. She turned her attention to Jaime, instead, who was chatting in a corner with Lancel.<br/>
“Are you ready?” Cersei snarled.<br/>
“Of course, dear cousin. I was just giving some tips to Lancel about how to play your ukulele...” Jaime replied. He’d been the one who played the ukulele in the <em>Queensguard</em>, before leaving the band to work for President Targaryen, but Lancel averted his eyes with embarrassment, and Brienne guessed they weren’t talking about music at all.<br/>
<br/>
Tyrion chimed in before Cersei could retort. “Let’s start! I’m quite tired and I’d like to go to bed as soon as possible... who would have thought that doing nothing for a whole day could be so stressful...”<br/>
His sister grimaced, but then she started tapping one of the seats with the baton until all the players were silent and ready.<br/>
“We start with <em>Running Wild</em>. So: one, two, one-two-three-four...” Cersei counted off.<br/>
The cacophony stopped them before Cersei’s yelling. “Nononono! What are you doing?!? Brian, you have to start the solo when I give you the sign! Alain,<em>tempo</em>! You’re not playing a funeral march! I thought you said you went to a conservatory...”<br/>
Sansa stiffened up. “I <em>did</em> go to a conservatory! And I was following the tempo!!!”<br/>
Brienne stopped her before they engaged an actual fight: behind Cersei’s back, Tyrion was flailing around, mouthing “Addam! Look at Addam!”, and gesturing towards the first violin. She searched Jaime’s eyes, and he nodded slightly. He made a sign with his hand that meant he was going to explain that later.<br/>
“I’m sorry Ms. Lannister. I messed things up and it misled both of us. Sometimes I get quite emotional when I play.” Brienne lied. She hoped that the bright red of her face could be interpreted as embarrassment. “Can we start again?”<br/>
“Emotional? Gods, why it’s always like that? Men! I should be the one who wears the pants...” Cersei complained.<br/>
“It’s just during rehearsals!” Sansa came to the rescue. “I assure you that Brian never makes a mistake when it’s the actual concert.”<br/>
Cersei glared at them. “From the beginning. Aaand one, two, one-two-three-four.”<br/>
<br/>
This time, they followed Addam’s directions and everything went smoothly.<br/>
Brienne swung, let herself get carried away by the rhythm during her solo, and when Jaime started singing her heart almost skipped a beat. He had a deep, warm voice when he talked. When he sang, it became almost devastatingly hot.<br/>
<em>“When I first met that gal of mine<br/>
It seemed just like a dream<br/>
But when she tho't she had me right<br/>
She started actin' mean<br/>
Like Jeyne led her little lamb<br/>
She led me all the time<br/>
Until the worm had to turn”<br/>
</em>
Jaime kept looking angrily at Cersei while he went through the verse. Then he twirled around gracefully and suddenly he was side by side with Brienne, his shoulder touched hers, and his hips brushed on her thigh as he swayed. She almost could feel his breath on her cheek when he began the chorus.<br/>
<em>“Runnin' wild, lost control<br/>
Runnin' wild, mighty bold<br/>
Feelin' gay, reckless too<br/>
Care free mind all the time, never blue!”<br/>
</em>
Brienne thanked the Gods that her fingers were firmly set on the saxophone keys, because otherwise they would be shaking.<br/>
<br/>
Music and love always go hand in hand, Mance used to say, and Brienne used to think that it was just a catchy phrase.<br/>
<em>“Don't love nobody, it's not worth while...” </em><br/>
It had been her motto for years.<br/>
Music had always been her passion, her job, a job she took very seriously, a job that filled her days and left her alone in her bed at night. Music was so important that it left no place for love in her life. At least, that was what she’d always told herself - Brienne knew perfectly well that it was a white lie: <em>she </em>was the one who wasn’t worth loving.<br/>
<br/>
But while she played she always forgot about that, she just let the notes flow into her saxophone and through her veins, firing her up. The rhythm of her breathing felt right, as she inhaled and blew the air that she’d kept in her cheeks in the meantime. The weight of her instrument in her hands felt right.<br/>
She felt heated and alive, and almost beautiful.<br/>
That was exactly what was happening now.<br/>
<br/>
The band slowed down the last bars of the chorus, Jaime turned to face her. Her glasses had moved down to her nose, and he touched lightly the bridge to push them back in place. His finger brushed her skin.
Brienne’s face became a bit more red than it already was due to the exertion.<br/>
Then he swirled again, singing the last sustained note.<br/>
<em>“Running wild!!!” </em><br/>
The flask he kept in his sock garters slipped out and hit the floor with a loud clank. It slid in the aisle - Brienne thought about that one time when Podrick went ice-skating with her Sansa in Lower Twin.<br/>
As soon as the small metal bottle reached Cersei’s feet, the band stopped playing.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The song of this chapter is the one from the movie, “Running wild”, by Arthur Harrington Gibbs with lyrics by Joe Grey and Leo Wood</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Sansa IV</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
“Tyrion!!!”  Cersei screamed so loud that Sansa yearned again for her earplugs.<br/>
Tyrion had been sitting in one of the aisle seats at the end of the car while they played, reading lazily a magazine, but he leaped to his feet immediately when his sister squealed.<br/>
<br/>
Sansa had learned two things during the day they’d spent with the <em>Queensguard</em>.<br/>
First, she disliked Cersei Lannister intensely. The woman was moody and haughty, and treated everyone as if their only purpose in life should be to please her. She was absolutely incompetent at conducting, too, and that didn’t help to soften Sansa’s judgement.<br/>
Second, Tyrion’s behavior towards his sister was a reliable gauge of Cersei’s temper: if he looked worried, then there was something to be worried about. 
And Tyrion looked absolutely terrified now, while Cersei picked up the flask with two fingers, and held it with an extended arm as if it were a poisonous spider.<br/>
<br/>
“Tyrion! I made it clear I don’t tolerate any drinking!”<br/>
“Cers, I am...” Not a septa, not a wet nurse, Sansa had heard Tyrion repeating it a lot of times, and yet he did a great effort to keep in line each and every member of the band.<br/>
“You’re the manager, so <em>manage this</em>!!!” Cersei shouted.<br/>
“Oh, come on, sister, it’s just a flask of...” Tyrion unscrewed the cap, smelled the liquor and took a sip. “Bourbon. Not a very good one, besides.”<br/>
“Tyrion!!!”<br/>
“And I’m not going to remind you that time in Bitterbridge, when you filled with red wine the bottle of Bobby’s beard lotion, am I?”<br/>
Renly coughed to hide a laughter. Cersei didn’t find it funny in the slightest. She turned to Jaime, then loomed over her brother, forcing him to look at her from below.<br/>
“Find out whose flask is it because I swear you that otherwise...” Cersei left the unspoken threat hanging in the air as the small metal bottle that still dangled from the dwarf’s hand.<br/>
<br/>
Jaime made a step forward, ready both to save Tyrion and to undergo Cersei’s wrath, but Brienne grabbed his shoulder.<br/>
“Wait!” Brienne hissed. “She’s going to fire you!” She warned him.<br/>
“As if I care...”<br/>
“You said you need this job! Stay behind me!” Brienne argued.<br/>
“<em>You</em> get behind me!” He stated back.<br/>
“I will not! I’m not the one who smuggled a flask in his sock garter...”<br/>
“I don’t need you to rescue me, Brian...”<br/>
Sansa sighed and shook her head.<br/>
While Jaime and Brienne still bickered under their breath, she patted Jon’s shoulder, handed him her double bass before he could reply, and walked to the center of the aisle.<br/>
<br/>
“Pardon me, may I have my flask back, Ms. Lannister?”<br/>
Cersei turned to her - everyone turned to her. Sansa held her gaze unflinchingly. “Your...”<br/>
“My flask.” She pointed at the item, raising an eyebrow.<br/>
“Mr. Bolton!” Tyrion exclaimed, while his eyes darted frantically back and forth between Cersei, Sansa, and Jaime, who’d finally stopped quarreling with Brienne and looked at the whole scene literally open-mouthed.<br/>
“Mr. Bolton...” Cersei seemed almost disappointed. She’d certainly had in mind someone else to punish.<br/>
“Alain, please... I’m sorry about the whole issue, Mance didn’t inform us about this rule of yours, and I thought that a little bit of good spirit wouldn’t do wrong.” She explained, trying to sound as lighthearted as possible.<br/>
“Well, Mance would better be more accurate, next time.” Cersei replied icily. She scrutinized both Sansa and Brienne. “For your information, there are two things I’m not going to put up with. One is alcohol, and the other one is women!” She listed, waggling the baton in front of her nose. This time, it was Bronn’s turn to cough loudly.<br/>
“Women?” Sansa blinked her eyes a bit too much, pouting.<br/>
“You don’t have to worry about that!” Brienne declared.<br/>
“Definitely! Why would we want to have anything to do with women, anyway? You know... they’re so ditsy and vain, and do not understand a jot about music...” Sansa stopped because she felt the physical weight of Brienne’s glare on her shoulders. Cersei didn’t seem to notice that Sansa was talking about her, though.<br/>
“So we have an understanding.” Cersei answered, and she wasn’t sarcastic.<br/>
<br/>
Sansa snatched the flask from Tyrion’s hand and strutted back to her place, head held high, standing straight - even if not too much, because of the boobs - and a smug smile beneath the faux mustache.<br/>
She winked at Brienne and Jaime, and retrieved the bull fiddle from Jon, who looked at her as if she’d just climbed the Wall bare-handed.<br/>
Cersei rapped the baton against one of the seats. “From the top, again!”<br/>
<br/>
——-<br/>
<br/>
“Goodnight!” Loras waved from the aisle, then followed Renly behind the curtain of their cots.<br/>
“Goodnight Loras!” Sansa waved back, smiling. She had already climbed up in the berth, and surveyed the men coming and going, while they got ready to sleep.<br/>
Their band colleagues were definitely more bearable in the evening than in the morning - all men usually were.<br/>
<br/>
After her little act of bravery during the rehearsal, some of them had started to look at her in a different way: more amiably, almost admiringly. Sansa was quite proud of that.<br/>
It astonished her that a woman like Cersei could have all of them in her pocket, and she wondered about how much cash Lannisters pockets could contain. Given the five huge suitcases full of fancy clothes that occupied lower berth two, the amount of money that this Dornish tour would cost them, and Tyrion, who’d stated that the <em>Queensguard</em> was just his sister’s <em>“entertaining side project” </em>Cersei’s family pockets were very, very spacious.<br/>
Sansa couldn’t blame the musicians, though. They probably would earn their annual income in few weeks - not that the annual income of a jazz player could bankrupt anyone but the jazz player himself, but still fifteen wages seemed quite a big investment for a side project.<br/>
<br/>
“‘Goodnight Lancel! Sleep well Gendry! Night, Oberyn!”<br/>
“Toddle-oo Alain!” Oberyn flirted back, and Sansa blushed thinking about the <em>entertaining side project </em>he’d invited them to at lunch. Some of the blushing was because, for a brief moment, she’d thought that maybe what the clarinetist suggested could be actually amusing.<br/>
Brienne crossed her stripe-pajamaed arms on the side of Sansa’s berth and glared at her from behind the glasses.<br/>
“You made me a promise...” She reminded her in a whisper. “And don’t forget you’re a boy.” Brienne added as Cersei pranced in the aisle, clad in her golden silk robe, and purposefully avoided to look at them.<br/>
“Come on, Brie!”<br/>
“<em>”Come on” </em>my ass!” Brienne’s swearing was a sign she was pretty upset.<br/>
“It’s not that I’m actually going to take all of them into my bed, you know, and not just because they wouldn’t fit in this cot. But a girl can dream...” Sansa murmured.<br/>
“Boy.” Brienne insisted. “You’re a boy. A boy who’s not going to draw attention anymore until he reaches Dorne, and will leave any flask on the floor next time...”<br/>
“It’s not my fault if <em>you</em> didn’t pick it up first!” Sansa glared in turn. She peeked out from the curtain and glanced on her left. On upper one, Jaime’s feet, still in the dark socks and the trendy sock garters, dangled from the berth. “Night-night, Jaime!”<br/>
Brienne jumped a step further inside their space, so he wouldn’t see her.<br/>
“Goodnight!” Jaime answered, peering in the aisle. “Goodnight Al...”<br/>
Sansa gestured to Brienne to go out and say goodnight too, but she shook her head. Sansa rolled her eyes, and moved back in the berth.<br/>
“You do certainly know how to disappoint a man!” She whispered.<br/>
“Why would I care if I disappoint him?” Brienne replied, but her blushing said that she did care very much.<br/>
“Because you like him and he likes you.”<br/>
“He doesn’t even know...this!” Brienne didn’t find the right words to sum up their masquerade. She didn’t deny that she liked him either, anyway, and Sansa thought that was an improvement. “And he said he’s not into men...”<br/>
“All the better! It means that he’s just into <em>you</em>...”<br/>
Sansa smiled mischievously. A plan was taking form in her mind, and she loved making plans. By the look on her face, Brienne didn’t love it at all.<br/>
“He’s not!” She retorted, again, then lowered her voice a bit more. “And until we reach Dorne we are men.”<br/>
Sansa sighed.<br/>
“Fine. I’m a boy, I’m a boy, I’m a boy, I’m a boy. Happy now?” She  chanted mockingly, then a whiff of cologne distracted her. “Hey Addam!!! Goodnight!”<br/>
Brienne grabbed the curtain and shut it.<br/>
<br/>
“Did you just see that <em>tight </em>union suit?!?” Sansa all but cheered.<br/>
In response, Brienne took the ladder that Sansa had used to climb up her berth and slid it under her own.<br/>
“What are you...?”<br/>
“I’m just preventing you from doing something stupid about men underwear.”<br/>
“Hey, wait... what if there’s... there’s, I don’t know... an emergency?”<br/>
Brienne nodded at the emergency brake by the window, Sansa stuck out her tongue. Her friend fought a smile.<br/>
“Goodnight, Alain.” She said. Her voice was softer, but she didn’t put the ladder back in place.<br/>
Sansa rocked her head from side to side, mimicking the movement she’d made while she’d repeated <em>“I’m a boy”. </em><br/>
<br/>
She waited until Brienne turned off the lights and slipped into the bed.<br/>
“Goodnight, Brian.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I have  a scheduled thing to write before February, so probably I won’t be able to update weekly for some time, I hope I’ll be back soon!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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